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The True Patrick Henry 



BY GEORGE MORGAN 



THE ISSUE 

A novel of the days of Clay, Webster, 
Calhoun, and Lincoln 

" It has a wide sweep. It is full of vigorous 
movement, of vivid, stirring pictures. Its turns 
and phrases are surprising, startling. It will 
gratify and satisfy the reader." — New Tori Sun. 

" Mr. Morgan has lifted the battle-fields of the 
South from their provincial setting, and marked 
them on the great war map of the world." — 
New Tori Evening Post, 

Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.^0 



John Littlejohn of J, 

A no'vel of the Re'volutton, 

with the main scenes at Valley Forge and the 
climax at the Battle of Monmouth. 

I2mo. Paper, ^o cents ^ Cloth, $i.00 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS :: :: PHILADELPHIA 



The True 
Patrick Henry 

By 
George Morgan 

Author of " John Littlejohn of J.," " The Issue," etc. 

JVith Twenty-four Illustrations 



Henry, the forest-born Demosthenes 
Whose thunder shoolc the Philip of the seas. 

— Byron : ' ' The Age of Bronzt. 



Philadelphia dff London 
J. B, Lippincott Company 



1907 J 



CUtp^ 



X O 



,Hd 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two CoDies Received 

AUG 23 1907 

CoDyrifi-ht Entry 
CLAsfs^A xXc. No. 

^J 



COPY 



Copyright, 1907, by J. B. Lippincott Company 
Published, September, 1907 



Electrotjfed and printed by J, B. Lippincott Companf 
The tVashington Square Press^ Philadelphia^ U. S. A. 



Contents 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — Introduction 9 

II. — By No Means a Model Boy 24 

III. — Struggles — Nine Years on the Wrong Road. . 36 

IV. — Out of Obscurity — A Sudden Leap 51 

V. — The Orator of Nature — The Stamp Act 75 

VI. — His Progress, His Personality 112 

VII. — Early Leadership — Contrast and Comparison.. 127 

VIII. — On a Larger Stage — The Continental Congress 149 

IX.— "We Must Fight" 177 

X. — As a Soldier — A Set-Back 199 

XI. — The Turning-Point — Home Folks and First 

Family 233 

XII. — As A Constructive Statesman 251 

XIII. — As AN Executive — Five Times Go\trnor 270 

XIV. — His Second Family 318 

XV. — Chief Critic of the Constitution ^i^^l 

XVI. — As a Lawyer — Anecdotes 365 

XVII.— Red Hill 393 

APPENDIX 

A. — Colonel Samuel Meredith's Statement 431 

B. — Judge Spencer Roane's Memorandum 435 

C. — Patrick Henry's Will 455 

D. — Inventories of Patrick Henry's Estate 461 



List of Illustrations with Notes 



PAGE 

Patrick Henry Frontispiece 

(From a painting by Thomas Sully. Henry is shown in a black 
suit, with white cravat and red velvet mantle. Sully worked from a 
miniature on ivory, painted by a French artist probably during the 
September Term of the United States Circuit Court, 1792, when Henry 
argued before that tribunal in Richmond. The miniature was made 
for Martha Syme, daughter of Colonel John Syme, and is now owned 
by John Fleming, of Richmond, Va. Attestations by Chief Justice 
Marshall, Francis Corbin, and the Rev. John Buchanan, as to the 
fidelity of the Sully portrait, appear opposite the reproduction of it 
used in this volume.) 

Pope and Dabney Facsimiles 20 

(Colonel Nathaniel Pope collected some data for Wirt's " Life " of 
Heru-y. George Dabney was one of Henry's neighbors.) 

The Rev. Samuel Davies 57 

(Patrick Henry was powerfully influenced by the oratory of Samuel 
Davies, the "New Light" preacher^ who became known as the 
"Apostle of Virginia," and who was subsequently President of 
Princeton. It was Davies who first proclaimed " that heroic youth, 
Colonel Washington," as one destined to render his country a great 
service. Henry was under the influence of Davies for twelve years. 
The reproduction is from a painting at Princeton University.) 

Hanover Court-House 66 

(It was in this building that Henry made his first great speech in the 
" Parsons' Cause," December i, 1763. It was built of imported brick 
in 1735. Seven arched ways lead out of the corridor upon which the 
court-room opens.) 

Judge Peter Lyons 71 

(Henry's opponent in the " Parsons' Cause." He was a leader of 
the Colonial bar and, after the Revolution, became distinguished as a 
jurist. His home was "Studley." From a painting in the Supreme 
Court room. State Capitol, Richmond.) 

Henry in the House of Burgesses 95 

(From P. H. Rothermel's painting. The scene is idealized. Henry 
appears in powdered wig and flowing scarlet robe. Pendleton wears 
a sky-blue coat. Wythe is " quite too old-looking." Richard Henry 
Lee is "a little too cool for the occasion.") 

vii 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS WITH NOTES 

PAGE 

The Stamp Act Resolutions loo 

(Facsimile of a memorandum in Patrick Henry's handwriting on 
back of Stamp Act Resolutions. This was the only historic document 
handed down by him to posterity. It was found enclosed with his 
will. " Reader, whoever thou art, remember this." Photographed 
from the original.) 

The Aylett Portrait of Henry 117 

(From a picture long in the possession of the Aylett family. Now 
owned by Mrs. Thomas P. Boiling, of Richmond. It is not from life.) 

The Clay Bust of Henry 122 

(Executed by an Italian, who was travelling in Virginia in 1788. In 
1859, T.W. Walter, of Washington, D.C, wrote: "The distinguished 
patriot sat for it at the request of Judge Tyler, the father of ex-Presi- 
dent Tyler, Mr. Madison, Judge Marshall, and other friends, during 
the session of the great Virginia Convention that adopted the Consti- 
tution of the United States. It was considered a perfect likeness, and 
is looked upon as invaluable by his family and friends, with whom it 
has remained ever since, and from whom I have received this in- 
formation." P. M. Henry wrote: "I have seen the terra-cotta 
likeness of my grandfather, Patrick Henry, alluded to by Mr. Walter 
in the foregoing letter, and take pleasure in saying that he has given 
a correct history of it. I have seen the bronze copy of it, which has 
since been executed by Messrs. Warner, Miskey, and Merrill, and 
have no hesitation in saying that it is an exact copy of the original 
bust." Clay bust now owned by Mrs. John M. Preston, Seven-Mile 
Ford, Va.) 

Raleigh Tavern 138 

(In this Williamsburg tavern met the patriot Burgesses when the 
House was dissolved by the King's agents. Many spirited scenes 
were enacted here. Henry led the opposition. It was the Faneuil 
Hall of Virginia. From an old print.) 

Old Capitol at Williamsburg, Virginia 138 

( "The Heart of the Rebellion" — meaning the Revolution. On the 
eve of its outbreak, the famous "Assembly " in honor of Lady Dun- 
more was given in the hall of the House. At Jamestown three 
" State Houses " were burned; at Williamsburg, two Capitols — one 
in 1746, the other in 1832. Traced in masonry on the sward is a great 
" H," showing the site.) 

Thomas Crawford's Statue of Henry 191 

(This is one of the five bronze figures which surround the equestrian 
statue of General Washington, in the Capitol Grounds, Richmond. 
Henry faces south. He is in the attitude taken by him at the climax 
of his greatest oration — " Give me Liberty !") 

viii 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS WITH NOTES 

PAGE 

Elizabeth Henry, Patrick's Feminine Alter Ego . . . 236 

(Born July 10,1749. She married General William Campbell, hero 
of King's Mountain, and by him had two children — one the beautiful 
Sarah Buchanan, wife of General Francis Pieston and mother of a 
distinguished line of men and women. General Campbell died at 
" Rocky Mills," Colonel John Syme's seat in Hanover, August 22, 
1781. His widow married General Wiiliam Russell, of the Conti- 
nental Army, May 29, 1782, and by him had four children. She lived 
at Aspenvale and the Salt-works, now Saltville. As " Madam Rus- 
sell" she was of celebrity throughout Virginia. She manumitted her 
slaves and gave up her lands to her children. She kept a pulpit in 
her dwelling for itinerant Methodist preachers. She was tall; and 
when little Mr. Madison, then a candidate for the Presidency, visited 
her, she placed a hand on his head, pressed him to his knees, and 
prayed for him as the coming Chief Executive. " I have heard all 
the first orators of America," said Madison, "but I have never heard 
any eloquence as great as that prayer of Mrs. Russell on the occasion 
of my visit to her." She died March 18, 1825. There is an idealized 
portrait of her in the memorial window of the Methodist church at 
Saltville.) 

*' Scotchtown" 239 

(This curious old dwelling, owned and occupied by Patrick Henrj', 
was also the girlhood home of Dolly Payne, who became the wife of 
President Madison.) 

Dorothea Spotswood 319 

(Daughter of Governor Alexander Spotswood, wife of Nathaniel 
West Dandridge, and mother-in-law of Patrick Henrj'. She was a 
noble dame. The photograph is from a painting. Her picture has 
never before been published.) 

"Salisbury" 323 

(Here Henry lived during his last two terms as Governor of Virginia. 
The house has a wide hallway, and a small porch on each of its four 
sides. It stands two miles west of Midlothian, Chesterfield County, 
Va., and thirteen miles west of Richmond. The estate is large.) 

"Attempt at the Features" of Patrick Henry . . . 386 

(This is a tracing by Thomas Crawford, the sculptor, from B. H. 
Latrobe's sketch-book. Latrobe's sketches were made in the Federal 
Court at Richmond. Henry had then fought all his battles, and was 
about to retire.) 

Old Red Hill, Charlotte County, Virginia 397 

(The smaller building was Patrick Henry's house. It was his last 
home. He added only the shed at the east end, that he might hear 
the patter of rain on a roof. The two-story part was erected by his 
son, Colonel John Henrj', who lived at Red Hill many years.) 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS WITH NOTES 

PAGE 

Red Hill — Present View 399 

(The house has been beautifully remodeled on Colonial lines. The 
view is southward, down the Valley of the Staunton, to the Halifax 
Hills. Like Mount Vernon, Red Hill is a Mecca for patriotic 
Americans. ) 



Dorothea Spotswood Henry 402 

(Daughter of Patrick Henry and his second wife, Dorothea Dan- 
dridge. Sharpies, the English artist, made a picture of this beautiful 
girl when she was eighteen, and the reproduction, here presented, is 
from his painting.) 

Title-Page of Patrick Henry's Family Bible .... 403 

(Now at Red Hill.) 

Leaf from Family Bible 406 

(With entries in Patrick Henry's handwriting of last marriage and 
birth-dates of children.) 



Patrick Henry's Chair 420 

(In his last illness he felt less pain when sitting than when reclining. 
It was in this chair that he died.) 



Patrick Henry's Desk 420 

(This stands in the same comer at Red Hill where it stood when 
Patrick Henry used it. In it he kept his letters from General Wash- 
ington, Richard Henry Lee, and others; likewise his business papers. 
Here are still bestowed his personal belongings, keepsakes, etc., 
including a penknife which his uncle, the Rev. Patrick Henry, gave 
him, and which he carried in his pocket till the day of his death.) 



Graves of Patrick Henry and Wife at Red Hill , . 428 

(The graveyard at Red Hill adjoins the garden on the eastern side. 
It is fifty feet square, and is enclosed by a boxwood hedge. Plain 
slabs cover the graves of Patrick Henry and Dorothea, his wife.) 



Meredith and Roane Facsimiles 429 

(Passages from the memoranda of Colonel Samuel Meredith, Henry's 
brother-in-law, and Judge Spencer Roane, Henry's son-in-law.) 



Patrick Henry, Dates and Data 

Born, " Studley," Hanover County, Virginia.... May 29, 1736 

' Clerk in store 1751 

Storekeeper 1752 

Married Sarah Shelton 1754 

Farmer and storekeeper I754~59 

Admitted to bar 1760 

First great speech, " Parsons' Cause " 1763 

Moved to " Roundabout," Louisa County 1764 

Second great speech, Stamp Act May 29, 1765 

Return to Hanover, " Scotchtown " 1767 

At bar of General Court 1769 

Popular leader and Burgess 1765-74 

In Continental Congress I774~75 

" Liberty or Death " oration March 23, 1775 

Leader of " Gunpowder Expedition " 1775 

Colonel and Virginia Commander-in-Chief . . T; 1775 

Death of first wife 1775 

Champion of Independence 1776 

Champion of Religious Liberty 1776 

Governor (first, second, and third terms) 1776-79 

Married Dorothea Dandridge I777 

Moved to " Leatherwood," Henry County 1779 

Leader of the Assembly . 1779-84 

Governor (fourth and fifth terms) 1785-86 

Moved to Prince Edward County 1786 

Returned to the law 1788 

Opposed the Federal Constitution 1788 

Argued British Debt Case I79I-93 

Retired, Red Hill 1794 

Declined United States Senatorship 1794 

" Mission to Spain 1794 

" Secretaryship of State 1795 

'* Chief- Justiceship 1796 

" Governorship 1796 

" Mission to France 1799 

Last public appearance March 4, 1799 

Elected to the Assembly 1799 

Died at Red Hill, aged 63 June 6, 1799 

Buried at Red Hill, Charlotte County, Virginia. 

xi 



Acknowledgments 



Kindness at the hands of many good people, in Virginia 
and elsewhere, is well remembered by the writer in connection 
with his work of gathering and verifying data for this Life 
of Patrick Henry. Thanks for courtesies are due to Mrs. Susan 
Bullitt Dixon, of New York; Dr. Lyon G. Tyler, of Williams- 
burg, Va. ; Robert A. Brock, of Richmond, and William G. 
Stanard, Secretary of the Virginia Historical Society. But 
especially is Mrs. Elizabeth Henry Lyons entitled to the grate- 
ful acknowledgments of the author for placing at his service 
the Henry material collected at Red Hill during the Nine- 
teenth Century. This material includes not only the original 
papers prepared for William Wirt by various acquaintances of 
Patrick Henry, but much pertinent matter that has come to 
light since William Wirt's day. Mrs. Lyons also aided in select- 
ing the illustrations used. 



The True 
Patrick Henry 

I 

INTRODUCTION 

Virginia this year rounds out her three centuries. 
Dividing this stretch of time in half, we are at the 
period when she gave to the world her most spirited 
and powerful generation of men. Washington was 
among these ; and one of the foremost, also, was Patrick 
Henry. Why and how it was that, being born under 
the flag of Great Britain, they elected to live and die 
under another, every^body knows ; but to gain a true 
understanding of them it is necessary to reach back 
into the comparatively unilluminated colonial era. 
Therefore, if the reader will put his finger at the chron- 
ological spot suggested, we shall have a useful start- 
ing-point for this inquiry. 

A question at once arises : Why is it so hard to get 
a white light on the old colonial life in the Chesapeake 
region ? There is no such difficulty with respect to New 
England, or New York, or Pennsylvania. The New 
England genius, to be sure, is strong, assertive, tena- 
cious of its past; cleaving to its tutelary ideals and 
idols. In that part of America, the colonists settled in 
congregations ; a provincial spirit soon developed, and 
the brisk sons of Mayflower stock found ample matter 
for story in the hardships overcome by their immigrant 
ancestors. In New York and in Pennsylvania great 
towns grew up ; so that in each of those regions local 

9 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

history has had a central and tangible something to 
revolve about. But in vain did the Virginia colonists 
seek to establish large towns. There was '' James 
City," which ruralized itself and ended in being James 
City County. Charles City County is a like instance. 
Throughout the tidewater country, families, as a rule, 
dwelt in sequestration. The laws of the people, their 
commerce, outlook upon the world, domestic ways, 
habits of thought, occupations, dress — all were so dif- 
ferent from ours in this age as to hinder us from a 
sympathetic, close approach. 

Yet this difference does not of itself account for the 
difficulty of getting a grasp on the generation preceding 
that of Patrick Henry. Not only is her historical 
period longer than that of any other Anglo-American 
region, but Virginia has been the victim of much icon- 
oclasm and some ill-will. Iconoclasts, for example, 
have tried to break Captain John Smith's head; which 
they would have been slow to attempt had that lively 
man of action been still in the flesh. They have tried 
to kidnap Pocahontas from the book of chronicles and 
lock her in the cave of myths. They have attacked the 
long-accepted idea that what is called the " cavalier " 
element entered into and colored colonial life on the 
banks of the James, the York, the Rappahannock, and 
the Potomac. There was a time when many Virginians 
themselves saw fit to discourage the cavalier idea. 
Hugh Blair Grigsby, in 1855, though admitting that 
some of the '* butterflies of the British aristocracy " 
had fluttered across the water, scornfully declared that 
the cavalier " was essentially a slave — a compound 
slave, a slave to the king and a slave to the church ; he 
was the last man in the world from whom any great 
elemental principle of liberty and law could come." 
Beverley Tucker said : " It is deemed arrogant to 
remember one's ancestors ; " and it is a picturesque 

10 



INTRODUCTION 

fact that General John Bull Davidson Smith of Hack- 
wood Park, in the fervor of his democracy, burned all 
the papers that traced his blood back to aristocratic 
fountain-heads. There were more burnings of a differ- 
ent sort during the Civil War, when many an ancient 
garret suffered sack and despoliation, to the detriment 
of history. But the Virginiaphobists of the bitter sec- 
tional days, and the iconoclasts who sought to destroy 
the romantic elements of Hakluyt's " western planting 
time," have alike been put to shame. The conclusion 
of the best scholarship of the day is that Captain John, 
the '* Admiral," Vv^as really an example of what a man 
" may be, may do, and may endure." As for Poca- 
hontas, she steps upon her pedestal again. The cava- 
lier, so called, is also rehabilitated ; though not without 
common-sense reservations. He was of less conse- 
quence than one of the two existing schools of Virginia 
writers would make him out. Of these schools, the first 
includes those who seek to preserve and refine the old 
idealities, and the other is composed of critical students 
who are willing to accept a fact, whether flattering or 
otherwise, if its verity be beyond dispute. Research 
is at odds with Romance. The unimaginative delver in 
court records and in the colonial archives looks askance 
upon the work of writers who set forth Virginia scenes 
as they would like them to appear, not as they know 
them past peradventure to have been. Thus it happens 
that the skies of history are not always clear when one 
attempts to realize and visualize the early Virginians.* 

* If Alexander Brown's powerful contention should be es- 
tablished, Virginia history would be illumined from the begin- 
ning. This contention is that Bacon's friend Sir Edwin Sandys, 
Shakespeare's friend Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of South- 
ampton, and other zealous and courageous forerunners of the 
Cromwellian order strove to establish a free England on these 
shores ; that James I., at heart a despot, cunningly set to it 
by Court Gondomar of Spain, sought by fair means or foul 

II 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Topographically, their spacious tidewater region is 
easy to grasp. Four rivers, flowing east by south, come 
out of the Blue Ridge ; traverse a fertile piedmont ; 
take their fall and pass on to the bay, broadening as 
they go. On the piney shores were the plantations, 
reaching back for miles. Some of the houses were 
brick, some frame — with green lawns and much life 
about. English ships came to the landings, and black 
men rolled hogsheads of tobacco on board. These and 
similar things by the score are well enough known. 
We know, too, that there was a downright sun-sparkle 
on the rivers ; that the Eighteenth Century mocking- 

to circumvent the reformers ; and that the King and Court 
party, overcoming the Patriot party, proceeded to confiscate 
and destroy all documents squinting at constitutionalism, thus 
corrupting and falsifying history to their own ends. Brown 
would revolutionize Virginia history. His premises once ad- 
mitted, the foundations of the colonial writers, Berkeley and 
Keith, crack under them ; and even Stith, " the accurate," 
slightly suffers. Virginia, born with a soul, passes down the 
torch flared by the rebel Bacon in 1676 and the rebel Patrick 
Henry in 1776. The research of Edward Duffield Neill and 
the studies of Philip Alexander Bruce have been thorough, 
but Brown writes of the Seventeenth Century as if he had 
lived in it. He looks upon the books of John Smith and 
Samuel Purchas as ex parte records — Court documents. His 
extreme anti-Smith bias is unfortunate. It was generated 
during the long '' John Smith Controversy," begun by Charles 
Deane in i860. But his Smith vagaries are of slight moment 
in comparison with the clear moral perspective that would 
result should his main proposition be sustained. His estimate 
of the work of Sandys, Southampton, and the Ferrars has high 
support. See John Fiske's " Old Virginia and her Neigh- 
bors." See especially " The Records of the Virginia Company 
of London — The Court Book from the manuscript in the 
Library of Congress," with an introduction by Susan Myra 
Kingsbury. The manuscript Court Book, 2 vols., 741 folio 
pages, was attested for the Earl of Southampton ; bought by 
Col. Byrd ; used by Stith, and studied by Patrick Henry's 
friend Richard Bland. 

12 



INTRODUCTION 

birds actually sang, and that the people were all alive 
from the Potomac on the north to the Nottoway and 
Roanoke far below. But direct documentary evidence 
is so much more to the point than either generalization 
or particularization that it is well to bring forward a 
contemporary voucher as to the human warmth and 
liveliness, not to say friskiness, of the time we are 
considering. When Washington was a boy five years 
old, this notice appeared in the Virginia Gazette, pub- 
lished at Williamsburg: 

" We have advice from Hanover County, that on Saint 
Andrew's Day, there arc to be Horse-Races and several other 
Diversions for the Entertainment of the Gentlemen and Ladies 
at the Old Field near Captain John Bickerton's in that county 
(if permitted by the Hon. Wm. Byrd, esquire. Proprietor of 
the said Land,) the substance of which is as follows, viz. : 

" It is proposed that 20 Horses or Mares do run round a 
three miles Course for a Prize of Five Pounds. . . . 

" That a Hat of the value of 20 s. be cudgelled for, and that 
after the first challenge made, the Drums are to beat every 
Quarter of an Hour for three Challenges round the ring, and 
none to play with their left hand. 

" That a Violin be played for by 20 Fiddlers ; no person to 
have the liberty of playing unless he bring a fiddle with him. 
After the prize is won, they are all to play together and each a 
different tune, and to be treated by the company. 

"That 12 Boys, of 12 years of age, do run 112 yards, for a 
Hat of the cost of 12 shillings. 

" That a Flag be flying on said Day 30 feet high. ^ 

" That a handsome Entertainment be provided for the sub- 
scribers and their wives ; and such of them as are not so happy 
as to have wives, may treat any other lady. 

" That Drums, Trumpets, Hautboys, etc., be provided, to 
play at said Entertainment. 

"That after Dinner, the Royal Health, His Honor the Gov- 
ernor's, etc., are to be drunk. 

" That a Quire of Ballads be sung for by a number of Song- 
sters, all of them to have Liquor sufficient to clear their 
Wind-Pipes. 

" That a pair of Silver Buckles be wrestled for by a number 
of brisk young men. 

13 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

" That a pair of handsome Shoes be danced for. 

" That a pair of handsome Silk Stockings of one Pistole 
value be given to the handsomest young Country Maid that 
appears in the field. With many other Whimsical and Comical 
Diversions, too numerous to mention. . . ." 

There is a reminder of old England in all this. One 
may see in fancy the day and the people and the scene. 
It is such a scene as might come bodily out of Scott, 
Robin Hood and all ; and it suggests the Shakespearean 
world as well. When we reflect upon the possible 
antics of those twenty merry fiddlers of Hanover, we 
are borne back to that particular portion of Shake- 
speare's world which has to do with merry-making on 
the green and with the impounding of a certain blithe, 
elusive spirit that droops and dies when caged by any- 
body but the great Englishman himself. Long had he 
been gone when this comedy was enacted in Captain 
John Bickerton's " Old Field," but if he had been alive 
and had put the fiddlers in a play as he did " Snout," 
" Quince," and " Bottom," the chances are they would 
have fiddled on through the ages, in spite of the coming 
of Tarleton's Dragoons, and in spite of the wrestling 
of enormous armies to and fro during the later years 
when terrible things happened in Patrick Henry's Han- 
over. For, a few miles to the south, Richmond was 
about to rise; and much of the ground in this vicinity 
was to become battle-ground. 

Just as the sportive bent of these transplanted Britons 
reminds us of Shakespeare, so the land-ow^ner men- 
tioned recalls the author of '' Henry Esmond " and 
" The Virginians." " If permitted by the Hon. Wm. • 
Byrd, esquire. Proprietor of the said Land," notes the 
Gazette. Colonel William Byrd, son, namesake, and 
heir of the founder of " Westover " on the James, was 
a man after Thackeray's own heart. He was a char- 
acter ready to step into a novel, and it is a pity that 

14 



INTRODUCTION 

Thackeray missed him. Without changing a button 
or a buckle or a hair, Colonel Byrd, founder of Rich- 
mond, would have passed from '' preface " to " finis," 
enlivening the book by his wit, lending it charm by 
his grace, humanizing it by his regard for the welfare 
of his fellow-creatures, and giving it throughout the 
texture and stamp of sound common-sense. Educated 
in England, called to the bar in the Middle Temple, 
Receiver-General of His Majesty's revenues and Presi- 
dent of the Council of the Colony, this lord of a hundred 
thousand acres was not spoiled by his mastery of many 
slaves, by his celebrity as the possessor of the greatest 
private library in the colonies, by his comeliness of 
person, or by his pride as the father of the beautiful 
Evelyn Byrd. On the contrary, he took the humorist's 
view of life and made a joy of it and a joke, and doubt- 
less laughed at the twenty fiddlers fiddling in the " Old 
Field " in Hanover. He should rank as one of the 
earliest of the American literary lights, and would 
unquestionably do so on a sharp and comprehensive 
readjustment of honors. " The Quakers," he wrote, 
** flocked to this country in shoals, being averse to go 
to Heaven the same way with the Bishops." Again 
we quote him: *' I reached Shockoe's (Richmond) 
before two o'clock, and crossed the river to the mills. 
I had the grief to find them both stand as still, for want 
of water, as a dead woman's tongue for want of 
breath." But it is a Hanover County passage, in his 
" Progress to the Mines," that chiefly concerns us here. 
Thomas Tinsley, one of his overseers, was with him. 

" In the evening [October 7, 1732] Tinsley conducted me to 
Mrs. Syme's house, where I intended to take up my quarters. 
This lady, at first suspecting I was some lover, put on a gravity 
which becomes a w-eed, but as soon as she learned who I was, 
brightened up into an unusual cheerfulness and serenity. She 
was a portly, handsome dame of the family of Esau, and seemed 

IS 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

not to pine too much for the death of her husband, who was of 
the family of the Saracens. He left a son by her, who has all 
the strong features of his sire, not softened in the least by 
any of hers. 

"This widow is«a person of lively and cheerful conversation, 
with much less reserve than most of her countrywomen. It 
becomes her well, and sets off her other agreeable qualities to 
advantage. We tossed off a bottle of port, which we relished 
with a broiled chicken." 

On the next day, he adds : 

" I moistened my clay with a quart of milk and tea, which I 
found altogether as great a help to discourse as the juice of 
the grape. The courteous widow invited me to rest myself 
there that good day, and go to church with her, but I excused 
myself by telling her she would certainly spoil my devotions. 
Then she civilly entreated me to make her house my home 
whenever I visited my plantations, which made me bow low 
and thank her very kindly." 

Thus, at the age of fifty-eight, appeared the gallant 
and sprightly Colonel Byrd, '' the black swan of his 
family," whose portrait is freely sketched here for a 
double reason — he stands for the aristocratic Virginian 
of the period, and, in the person of the '' portly, hand- 
some dame," he has introduced us to the woman who, 
three and a half years later, became the mother of 
Patrick Henry. 

That there was appreciation of widows in those 
parts at that day, is clear enough to any one who dips 
into Virginia genealogy. Such a one assures us : '' It 
was not an unusual thing for a later husband to submit 
for probate the will of his predecessor." As in Bibli-' 
cal times, families were large. Governor Page's chil- 
dren numbered twenty. General Robert E. Lee's grand- 
father in the maternal line, Colonel Charles Carter of 
" Shirley," one of Washington's friends and corre- 
spondents, was the father of twenty-three. " King " 

i6 



INTRODUCTION 

Carter's father, Colonel John Carter of Corotoman, was 
five times a bridegroom ; and in the same family there 
was a lady who, like the " Wife of Bath " in the " Can- 
terbury Tales," was five times a bride — five times a 
widow. 

These facts would be satisfying to those who enjoy 
the discovery of piquancies in the colonial records, if 
they did not in themselves presuppose a sorrowful 
side. To realize this sad side, one has but to look upon 
the portraits of handsome men in scarlet coats and great 
white perukes and lovely ladies in like elegance of rai- 
ment who passed from earth before their time. Swamps 
and tuckahoe marshes under the dog-day sun bred 
into the air a something that made both widows and 
widowers. Of course there were men of sense who 
practised medicine ; but Dr. Slop also rode about in his 
gig, and, worse still, Dr. Phlebotomy, to whose zealous 
attentions the death of no less a man than General Wash- 
ington is -clearly traceable. But whether the lowland 
miasma or the doctors be to blame, the widow became 
a force and a factor in colonial economics. Like 
tobacco, she was sure to be talked about when court 
met. The wink, the mischievous remark, the raillery 
of unmarried men, had a meaning that was well under- 
stood. If the widow were rich, if she were comely, 
if she were of repute for charm of character or domes- 
tic skill, she was sure of a suitor from near or far. 
Frequently she united famous families and great 
estates. Bantering gallantly as he journalizes, Byrd 
accurately takes the tone of his time in regard to her. 
If, as is most likely, he read the passage in " Tristram 
Shandy " wherein the Widow Wadman causes Uncle 
Toby to do her the service of peeking into her eye, 
Vv^e may be sure he paid to Laurence Sterne the com- 
pliment of a hearty Westover laugh. 

It is fair to assume that the discreet Mrs. Syme 

2 17 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

(pronounced " Sim ") had the best of reasons for giv- 
ing her supposed suitor a guarded greeting. Bereft 
the year before of a good mate in the person of 
Colonel John Syme,* a member from Hanover in the 
House of Burgesses, she had already chosen her path 
out of widowhood. He who, within a few months, 
was to lead her thence lived under her own roof 
— a Scotchman, a scholar, a man of character; and 
not only so, but a friend of the lamented master 
of " Studley." But it is in order to keep our Scotch 
scholar in abeyance for a few moment* until we 
shall have said something about this " Studley " place 
— a frame structure, backed by cool spring-houses 
on a minty slope and fronted by spacious and beautiful 
grounds. The approach was along an avenue bordered 
by double rows of locust trees. The plantation is on 
the Tottipottimoy, made famous by Captain Smith and 
more famous still by Samuel Butler in '' Hudibras." 
Butler, declaring that 

" Justice gives sentence many times 
On one man for another's crimes," 

proceeds to find his proof in the case of a colonial 
cobbler : 

" This precious brother having slain 
In times of peace an Indian, 
Not out of malice, but mere zeal 
Because he was an infidel, 
The mighty Tottipottimoy 
Sent to our elders an envoy 
Complaining sorely of the breach 
Of league ..." 

* In 1731, the Widow Syme " petitioned the Council for pay 
for the services of her husband, Colonel Syme, who died while 
laying out the boundaries of Hanover and Louisa." Colonel 
Syme was a Scotch immigrant. 

18 



INTRODUCTION 

But the wise " elders " were loath to hang the useful 
and pious preacher-cobbler ; so they 

" Resolved to spare him ; yet to do 
The Indian Hoghan Moghan, too, 
Impartial justice, in his stead did 
Hang an old weaver that was bed-rid." 

" Hottitottipottimoy," Grant's soldiers called the stream, 
because they found it hot in the bordering bottom-lands. 
The widow of "Studley," Sarah Winston Syme, was 
the daughter of Isaac Winston and Mary Dabney. 
Great is genealogy — especially as it enables one to 
puncture the bubbles of such as seek to put borrowed 
blue into good red blood. Within a few months past 
there was an attempt of the sort to outrage plain 
Patrick Henry — to set up a king 'as his ancestor. In 
getting at his genealogical tap-root, we shall see what 
nonsense such a notion is, and we shall dissipate at 
least one popular error concerning him. Had he Irish 
blood in his veins? Certainly he should have had, 
considering his Christian name, native eloquence, com- 
bative spirit, and whole-souled readiness to risk his 
all as a rebel. Yet, if there were an Irish trickle in his 
heart, it came percolating to him by way of some fore- 
bear whose name and race were hidden in the merging. 
Through Mary Dabney he got good Huguenot blood. 
Her people belonged to a congregation of refugees who 
colonized at Manakin, on the upper James, where 
their leader, the clergyman Claude Philippe de Riche- 
bourg, found the Monacan Indians less ferocious by far 
than had been his kinsmen and neighbors in the Chris- 
tian kingdom of France. As for the Hanover Win- 
stons, their old home was in Yorkshire, England ; and 
the immigrants had reached Virginia at a much later 
date than the founders of the so-called " Tuckahoe " 
families. Hence the Winstons did not belong to the 

19 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

cavalier aristocracy ; they were small landholders — 
sturdy men all. Dolly Madison was Isaac Winston's 
great-granddaughter, and his descendants are at this 
day well abroad in many of the States. But it is Isaac's 
son William, or " Langloo," whose portrait must now 
be drawn. He was a fresh type of Virginian — not a 
tidewater man, but a lover of the hills and the wilder- 
ness. At his hunting quarter by the mountains, he 
camped with the Indians ; dressed as one ; shot deer. 
In a word, he was a '' buckskin " — a " long knife," 
like Christopher Gist. 

Nathaniel Pope,* a gallant light horseman of the 
Revolution, wrote this about him: 

" I have often heard my father, who was intimately ac- 
quainted with William Winston, say that he was the greatest 
orator whom he had ever heard, Patrick Henry excepted ; that 
during the last French and Indian War, and soon after Brad- 
dock's defeat, when the militia were marched to the frontiers 
of Virginia against the enemy, this William Winston was a 
lieutenant of a company ; that the men were indifferently 
clothed, without tents, and exposed to the rigour and inclem- 
ency of the weather, discovered great aversion to the service, 
and were anxious and even clamorous to return to their 
families ; when this same William Winston, mounting a stump 
(the common rostrum, you know, of the field orator of Vir- 
ginia), addressed them with such keenness of invective, and 
declaimed with such force of eloquence on liberty and patriot- 
ism, that when he concluded the general cry was : ' Let us 
march on ! Lead us against the enemy ! ' and they were now 
willing, nay anxious, to encounter all those difficulties and dan- 
gers which, but a few moments before, had almost produced 
a mutiny." 

Upon reading this, he who believes in transmitted 
tendencies is apt to say : '^ Now we know where our 

* This Nathaniel Pope, of " Chilton," Hanover County, was 
mortally wounded in a duel, near Taylorsville ; " and died 
smoking his pipe, having requested his son not to prosecute 
the matter." 

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INTRODUCTION 

Patrick got his trick of tongue ; " but let us suspend 
judgment and pass for a few moments across the water 
into the presence of Henry, Lord Brougham, and hear 
what he has to urge with respect to the origin of his 
own oratorical fire. Oddly enough, at the very outset 
of Brougham's " Life and Times " we meet with another 
Widow Syme, his grandmother, sister to the Scottish 
historian Robertson. Imagine this " Mally " Robertson, 
a beauty, sitting in a garden on a summer day; her 
surprise when a swarm of honey-bees clustered in 
masses upon her head, neck, and shoulders ; her sensa- 
tions, impelling to terror; her self-control, enabling her 
to remain motionless, and her relief when they once 
more took wing. At her house in Edinburgh, when 
she had become the Widow Syme, there one day 
appeared the heir of Brougham, grieving because of 
the sudden death, on her wedding eve, of his cousin and 
bride-elect,,^ Mary Whelpdale, "the last of a perfectly 
pure Saxon race." But the distracted lover married 
Eleanor, daughter of the Widow Syme; and Lord 
Brougham, felicitating himself with naive egotism upon 
his escape from Saxon mediocrity, concludes : " I, at 
least, owe much to the Celtic blood which my mother 
brought from the clans of Struan and Kinloch-Moi- 
dart." 

Now Jean Robertson, an aunt of " Mally " Robert- 
son Syme, married Alexander Henry. Their son John, 
born in Aberdeen, became the second husband of the 
mistress of '' Studley " in Hanover and was the father 
of our Patrick. 

So here is a pretty problem in heredity: Did the 
American orator inherit his peculiar genius by way of 
the Winston line, or did he get it through the Robert- 
son strain, which put such vehemence and power into 
the tongue of Lord Brougham as to enable him to 
destroy the slave-trade of Great Britain? Or may 

21 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

there not have been a blending of qualities inherited 
from both? At any rate, we here find the Celt, if not 
the Irishman, in Patrick Henry. 

For some reason, John Henry does not pulsate under 
the biographer's hand. Not that he is shadowy — the 
outlines of his forty years in Hanover are as clear as 
need be. We have assurance that he was county sur- 
veyor, colonel of militia, presiding magistrate, adherent 
of the Anglican Church, and a faithful supporter of the 
regal government. " Respectable," " plain," " solid " 
— all are used in describing him. He " knew his Horace 
better than his Bible " ; and he must have known some- 
thing about the Bible too, for when he got into an 
argument on the subject of eternal punishment, he 
turned to his Greek Testament and disputed from the 
depths of that. He made a map of Virginia. He 
brought up his two sons and seven daughters * in the 
way they should go. He did much besides ; yet his wig 
is never sufficiently in disarray to satisfy a seeker after a 
strong portrait. When George Whitefield, the pioneer 
Methodist preacher and revivalist, whom Chesterfield 
pronounced the most eloquent man he had ever heard, 
was in Virginia, he saw a little girl staring at him as if 
he were unreal to her. Thereupon the kind man, who 
had been through much, stooped, lifted his wig, and, 

* Genealogists show that more than seventy substantial 
Southern families are in cousinship through the ramifications 
of the John and Sarah stock. They are spread wide over 
Dixieland from old Roanoke to the Rockies. General Joseph 
E. Johnston was a descendant. So was the wife of General 
Wade Hampton. R. A. Brock says : " In vigor of intellect 
in its various exemplifications, in true manhood, and in illus- 
trious and material service in the one sex, and in the typical 
exhibition of womanly graces and virtues characteristic of 
Virginia and the South in the other, no citizen of the Old 
Dominion within its annals or traditions has been more 
honored in his descendants, to the present generation, than 
John Henry." 

22 

' \ 

\ 



INTRODUCTION 

pointing to a gash in his scalp, said : " See ! There is 
where the brick-bat hit me." We may not Hft the 
wig of John Henry; but later in these pages we shall 
find him in a dramatic situation, and may even now 
behold him in this bit of a sketch by Nathaniel Pope : 

" There are those yet alive who have seen him at the head 
of his regiment, celebrating the birthday of George III. with 
as much enthusiasm as his son Patrick afterward displayed in 
resisting the encroachments of that monarch." 

John Burk made a curious error in his " History of 
Virginia." Misled by our Patrick's custom of writing 
" junior " after his name, Burk said that Patrick was 
the son of Patrick. The '' senior " in the case was 
Colonel John Henry's brother Patrick,* also bred in 
the old university town of Aberdeen, who, twelve days 
after his namesake's birth, became rector of St. Paul's 
parish, Hanover. The glebe tract of " Mount Pleas- 
ant " was near " Mount Brilliant " — later known as 
" The Retreat " — whither Colonel John Henry soon 
removed; and the two lived in tender attachment and 
close brotherhood for the rest of their days. Each 
spoke with the Scotch accent. Colonel John was amia- 
ble; the reverend Patrick was irascible. 

* Patrick was a common name in Scotland. From that 

country, for instance, came Colonel Patrick Ferguson, the best 

sabreur in the British army during the Revolution. He was 
killed at King's Mountain. 



2.3 



II 

BY NO MEANS A MODEL BOY 

As these pages multiply, it will be remarked that 
May and June were peculiarly eventful months in the 
life of Patrick Henry. He was born at " Studley," 
sixteen miles from Richmond, on the 29th of May, 
1736. When he was a few months old, his parents 
removed to *' Mount Brilliant " farm, twentv-two miles 
from Richmond. Near the house ran the South Anna 
River. Rocky Mills, not far away, gave a name to the 
neighborhood. Forests then covered the country. 

All of Sarah Syme Henry's boys were born at " Stud- 
ley " — John Syme, William Henry, and Patrick Henry. 
At '' Mount Brilliant " so many daughters were born to 
her that she must have feared lest she should use up 
all the good old feminine names — ^Jane, Sarah, Susan- 
nah, Mary, Anne, Elizabeth, and Lucy. 

There were no free schools in Hanover; and the pay 
schools were poor. Anybody could teach. One merely 
put up his sign, " John Jones, Teacher " ; placed some 
benches in a room ; cut a hickory switch ; and all was 
ready for the torture and the flogging. Judge John 
Tyler used to say of a teacher of the type : " It was a 
wonder he did not whip all the senses out of his 
scholars." A few, however, were efficient. Such, for 
instance, was Devereux Jarratt, who became a celebrated 
clergyman. He was of a stratum of society below the 
Winstons, Dabneys, and Henrys, and far below the 
" Tuckahoes." " A periwig in those days," says Jarratt, 
" was a distinguishing badge of the gentlefolk, and 
when I saw a man with a wig on, riding the road near 
our house, it would so alarm my fears and give me such 

24 



BY NO MEANS A MODEL BOY 

a disagreeable feeling that I dare say I would run off 
as for my life." One of his boyhood duties was to take 
care of game-cocks and get them ready for a fight. 
Racing, dancing, and card-playing were common Sun- 
day amusements. Jarratt taught in Hanover, but 
probably did not have our Patrick as a pupil. That 
Patrick attended " a common English school " until 
he was ten years old we learn from the memorandum 
of Colonel Samuel Meredith,''' who was older by four 
years, who lived but four miles away, and who married 
Patrick's sister Jane. Meredith adds : '' He never 
went to any other school, public or private, but remained 
with his father, who was his only tutor." He learned 
some Latin and a little Greek, and got a good ground- 
ing in mathematics. At fifteen he was " well versed 
in both ancient and modern history." He was '' quiet." 
He was "thoughtful," "mild," "benevolent," "humane." 
He was fond of his gun. Being housed, when about 
twelve, because of a broken collar-bone, he learned 
to play on the flute. He could handle the fiddle-bow. 
Careless as to outside garb, he " was unusually atten- 
tive in having clean linen and stockings." He loved 
his sisters, and was a dutiful son. 

Now, if this be not a flattering leaf from the family 
album, where did tradition and William Wirt find their 
good-for-nothing boy Patrick? In preparing his eulo- 
gistic " Life " — a labor of love for many years — what 
motive could Wirt have had in writing his hero down 
as an idler and a truant? This is the way Wirt treats 
the boy: 

" He was too idle to gain any solid advantages from the 
opportunities which were thrown in his way. He was passion- 
ately addicted to the sports of the field, and could not support 
the confinement and toil which education required. Hence, 

* See Appendix A for Meredith's detailed statement. 

25 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

instead of system or any semblance of regularity in his studies, 
his efforts were always desultory, and became more and more 
rare, until at length, when the hour of his school exercises 
arrived, Patrick was scarcely ever to be found. He was in 
the forest with his gun, or over the brook with his angle-rod; 
and, in these frivolous occupations, when not controlled by 
the authority of his father (which was rarely exercised) he 
would, it is said, spend whole days and weeks, with an appetite 
rather whetted than cloyed by enjoyment. His school-fellows, 
having observed his growing passion for these amusements, 
and having remarked that its progress was not checked either 
by the want of companions or the want of success, have fre- 
quently watched his movements to discover, if they could, the 
secret source of that delight which they seemed to afford him. 
But they made no discovery which led them to any other con- 
clusion than (to use their own expression) 'that he loved 
idleness for its own sake.' " 

Again does Mr. Wirt hold up the lad to shame: 

" His person is represented as having been coarse, his man- 
ners uncommonly awkward, his dress slovenly, his conversa- 
tion very plain, his aversion to study invincible, and his facul- 
ties almost entirely benumbed by indolence. No persuasion 
could bring him to read or work. On the contrary, he ran 
wild in the forest, like one of the aborigines of _^the country, 
and divided his life between the dissipation and uproar of the 
chase and the languor of inaction." 

A little more and Patrick would have been a Pamun- 
key, indeed ! On his hunting trips he must have met 
some of the Pamunkey tribe, for, as Thomas Jefferson 
tells us, they lived just down the river, on land " so 
encompassed by water that a gate shuts in the whole." 

But Colonel Meredith's character of the boy stands 
strong against William Wirt's fanciful estimate. The 
manuscript narrative of Meredith, as taken down by 
Judge William H. Cabell and sent to Wirt, is before 
us at this moment. Wirt must have had it in his 
possession when he wrote his book. Why, then, did 
he not weave the Meredith thread into the texture of 

26 



BY NO MEANS A MODEL BOY 

his memoir? It may be that he had talked with Han- 
over people who had convinced him that the true Patrick 
was a different boy from the one depicted in the Mere- 
dith notes ; but the probability is that Wirt could not 
resist his impulse towards " artistic romancing." He was 
confessedly a lover of the picturesque. What a laugh- 
ing-stock Parson Weems had made of himself by draw- 
ing young George Washington as a human paragon ! 
It would not do to deify Patrick Henry so. On the 
contrary, the man would be better liked if given a 
touch of human frailty. The proportions must be 
preserved. Later eulogy would be more effective if it 
should be prefaced by harmless detraction. Here pres- 
ent was the great drama of liberty, and a renowned 
actor would soon leap upon the boards ; why not begin 
with a shock, a surprise, a justifiable belittlement ? 
Certainly there was opportunity enough for an original 
and striking picture of the great orator's Hanover life. 
" Yes," said the old Virginians ; " that was his reputa- 
tion — he was lazy in his youth — he was a genius ; " 
and Wirt half believed them. In spite of the Meredith 
contradiction, it suited him to believe them. So, with 
a polite acknowledgment of its receipt, he passed over 
the letter forwarded by Judge Cabell because its colors 
failed to blend with his own, and then he gave so 
positive a picture of young Patrick's indolence that it 
lingers in the public mind to-day. '' At fifteen," writes 
A. G. Bradley, echoing Wirt, " he [Patrick] was a 
wastrel and an idler, a reputed hater of books and work, 
a loud-tongued joker at the village tavern." 

Wirt follows up his strictures with a passage amus- 
ingly characteristic of the times in which he wrote : 

" Let not the youthful reader, however, deduce from the 
example of Mr. Henry an argument in favor of indolence and 
the contempt of study. Let him remember that the powers 
which surmounted the disadvantage of those early habits were 

27 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

such as very rarely appear upon this earth. Let him remember, 
too, how long the genius, even of Mr. Henry, was kept down 
and hidden from the public view, by the sorcery of those 
pernicious habits ; through what years of poverty and wretched- 
ness they doomed him to struggle ; and let him remember 
that at length, when in the zenith of his glory, Mr. Henry 
himself had frequent occasions to deplore the consequences of 
his early neglect of literature, and to bewail ' the ghosts of his 
departed hours.' " 

This is moralizing in the true early Nineteenth Cen- 
tury style. Contrast Parson Weems' goody-goody 
stories and William Wirt's moralizing with the treat- 
ment of boy-nature by a Meredith who is unconnected 
with the old-time Virginia Meredith, as well as with 
America itself — George Meredith, author of " The 
Ordeal of Richard Feverel." There are no apologies 
in the books of this latter-day analyst of the heart of 
youth. The truth as told by George Meredith about 
boys is not softened in the least. It is painful in its 
exactitude. A boy may be both brute and angel. He 
has in him the essence of nobility, but also he is a 
born barbarian. Loving his dog, he will caress the 
creature and make much of him ; but he will wantonly 
pull that dog's tail before he is through. George Mere- 
dith, who knows the boy by heart, would have gloried 
in the lad of the Hanover forests. 

Not that Wirt was lacking in fondness for boys. It 
was not every dignitary who would take off his clothes, 
as he did while Attorney-General of the United States, 
plunge into the swimming-pool at St. John's College, 
Annapolis, and engage the students in a " battle of 
splash " till his radiant face and curly white head 
ducked in token of defeat. Indeed, after what has 
been said in dispraise of William Wirt,* one pauses 

* Wirt was a wit, a conversationalist, a maker of impromptu 
epigrams. As a young man, he was gay. He married a daugh- 

28 



BY NO MEANS A MODEL BOY 

to think of the man. His whole hfe comes up ; and the 
sHght, but necessary, strictures here made take on a 
paltry aspect. They seem tantamount to a calumny upon 
as charming a character as could be found in American 
letters or politics. One feels it a pity even to task him 
for his fault of floridity — for writing a " splendid 
novel," when it was his duty to stick to facts. Per- 
sonally, how sincere he was, how brilliant, how able ! 
If his Horace were always in his pocket, there was 
always in his head a counterbalancing sense of humor, 
saving him from pedantry. Emulous of the great prac- 
titioners and orators of his age, he almost reached their 
height. With high literary ambition, he stands a typi- 
cal figure among our American Amiels of his day — 
those witty and genial and learned and lovable souls 
who left behind them little save the record of their 
aspirations. 

And now seems the time to say what should be said 
somewhere in this volume — that Patrick Henry's son 
John "^ named a son of his own William Wirt Henry, 

ter of Colonel Robert Gamble, of Gamble's hill, Richmond. 
One summer morning early Colonel Gamble, on business bent, 
entered Wirt's office. Wirt, who had been up all night with 
boon companions, was armed with a sheet-iron blower and a 
poker and was reciting " Falstaff's " account of the battle with 
the men in buckram. Colonel Gamble bowed to his prospective 
son-in-law, and withdrew. 

* Colonel John Henry was four years old when his father 
died. He was chagrined when he first read W^illiam Wirt's 
book. He felt that Wirt should have visited Red Hill before 
writing it, and that he should have talked with two of Patrick 
Henry's sisters, who were then living. He also realized 
that Jefferson had unduly influenced Wirt. On the other 
hand, John Henry admired the " Sketches " for the qualities 
that popularized them ; and showed his gratitude to Wirt 
in many ways. William Wirt Henry inherited the duty of 
clearing his grandfather's record. His first notable paper, 
" Character and Public Career of Patrick Henry," was pub- 

29 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

who, by research, by sifting, by pious continuity of 
labor through many years, rescued and authenticated 
much matter of weight and consequence concerning 
the Hfe of the great orator. But his task was difficult. 
When Patrick Henry had grown great, he did not con- 
cern himself about the rungs of the ladder by which 
he had climbed. He left but one important paper. As 
he did not foresee that futurity would wish to know 
whether he took his father's '' birchings " stoically, 
whether he held his nose when he dived in the South 
Anna swimming-hole, or whether he could perform 
startling acrobatic feats in some grapevine gymnasium 
far in the woods, he made no record of such things. 
He probably shared Chief-Justice John Marshall's 
dread of biographers. " I hope to God they will let 
me alone till I am dead," said Marshall, within Wirt's 
hearing — which was not altogether complimentary to 
Wirt. 

Many Hanover people told Nathaniel Pope of 
Patrick's liking for the woods and of his playful spirit. 
'' Colonel Charles Dabney," says Pope, " has described 
to me the place on the South Anna where Patrick when 
a boy would overset the canoe in which they were 
crossing the river, and which the Colonel attributed to 
accident until he remarked that whenever an accident 
of this kind happened, himself and brother had their 
clothes on, and Patrick Henry, under some pretext or 
other, was generally divested of his." Again Pope 
says : " Henry when a boy took great pleasure in the 
company of an agile fellow, a dependant of his, who. 

lished in the Richmond, Va., Dispatch, in 1867; other papers 
followed ; and in 1891 he published his three-volume " Patrick 
Henry : Life, Correspondence, and Speeches." It is a work of 
1,946 pages. William Wirt Henry was a thorough student of 
early Virginia history. He was never in robust health. He 
died in 1900. 

30 



BY NO MEANS A MODEL BOY 

was famous for performing extraordinary feats of 
dexterity and activity. He would often give him a 
pistareen to climb a tall pine in the neighborhood with 
his feet foremost, to the admiration of the beholders ; 
and sometimes he would designedly tangle his fishing 
lines and get them into the hardest knots to observe 
with what dexterity this little fellow would untangle 
and loose them." 

Moreover, the traditions of Red Hill, where Patrick 
Henry spent his last days, agree with those of Hanover 
that he was particularly given to roaming the woods. 
" Jack White," a Red Hill servant, half Indian and an 
expert woodcraftsman, once asked his master to tell 
him of the boyhood sports on the South Anna. Henry 
said to "Jack White" that his object in his solitary 
rambles was to " learn the language of the birds." 
Knowing no better, he fancied that if he should listen 
patiently and think a long time, he could at last learn 
what the birds meant when they sang. The mocking- 
bird could call like a whippoorwill, caw like a crow, 
scream like a jay-bird, or cackle like a hen. What did it 
all signify? he had asked himself, and so had set about 
the task of solving the puzzle. 

One of his boyhood joys was to sit in a shady place 
and watch the cork on his fishing line. Or, flat on his 
back, with his hands clasped under his head and his 
legs crossed in air, he would watch the buzzards in 
their gyrations a full mile aloft. Considering the native 
wholesomeness and acuteness of his mind, he was prob- 
ably learning more than he could have gathered from 
all the Jarratts in the colony. For who shall say that 
he was not more studious while thus prone upon his 
back than if he had been bench-fast in a school-room, 
thumbing a dull book ? His eyes were sharp ; his 
memory was keen ; his whole mind plastic, receptive, 
retentive. Like John in the Wilderness, he saw and 

31 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

absorbed. " Repent ! " thought John, again and again. 
What our Patrick thought is best shown in what he 
said and did when it came his turn to do and say. The 
river ran by ; the hfe of the forest was with him ; the 
Book of Nature was open. Many of her laws were in 
operation before his eyes. Her precision of workman- 
ship ; her fidehty, as seen each spring when back to their 
places came old bird-friends and old flower-friends ; 
her bounty — a marvellous thing; her fateful quali- 
ties of disfavor and ferocity; her majesty, as beheld 
above the dark pine masses on a sparkling night — these 
truths, laws, beauties, must have been manifest to him 
and absorbed by him ; and this life he led, this schooling, 
must have made of him something truer, something 
saner, something freer and stronger than he would 
have been if he had leaned unduly upon what man- 
kind puts into books. 

Yet books and bookish men had not a little to do with 
Patrick Henry's development. Even if Mr. Wirt be 
right as to the boy's truancy, there were rainy days 
then as now, and by no possibility could Patrick 
always have escaped the sound of his father's voice — 
the unctuous Scotch twist and twang as the Aberdeen 
dominie construed Latin and Greek with his grammar- 
school pupils. A traveller of the period tells of the 
delight he felt when once he came upon a great number 
of Virginia boys out on the green, under the trees, 
with the wild blue mountains in full view, going over 
their Greek in melodious voices. As befits the idyllic 
sketch, the master sat in silence ; and the music of the 
verb " tupto," the traveller avows, lingered long in 
his ears. Doubtless there was an enticing side likew^ise 
to the " Mount Brilliant " school ; and, when Uncle 
Patrick came, the air at times must have been filled with 
the sound of learning. Nor ought we to lose sight of 
the fact that there was a special reason why the Gentle- 

32 



BY NO MEANS A MODEL BOY 

man's Magamne should be read at " Mount Brilliant." 
Another Aberdeen scholar, David Henry, a cousin of 
John and Patrick Senior, was its co-editor. On one 
occasion our Patrick said, within the hearing of Gov- 
ernor John Page : '' Naiteral parts is better than all 
the larnin' upon yearth ; " and this expression has been 
cited in proof of his illiteracy. But Patrick could 
mimic a man to perfection, and possibly the Governor 
was not quick to see a joke ; or possibly Page took out 
the honest '' are " and interpolated the mischievous 
'' is." Virginians in that day, as later, had a way of 
their own with words. The polished Edmund Pendle- 
ton pronounced " scarcely " "" scaisely." Said the irri- 
table John Randolph of Roanoke to a woman who was 
a long time serving his breakfast : 

" Why don't you make that coffee ? " 

" I wuz a-makin' it." 

'' You uju:; a-makin' it ! Whoever said ' wuz ' but 
you and the Chief-Justice ! " 

According to John Adams, Patrick Henry said that, 
at fifteen, he had read Virgil and Livy in the original. 
Judge Hugh Nelson reports that, when older, Henry 
read a translation of Livy once a year, Henry himself 
having so stated. Hence it is allowable to surmise that 
liberty and republicanism, got into his head by way of 
old Rome, as well as by breathing the breath of that 
something which dwelt in the wilderness. 

Whether our Patrick, if he had lived, could have 
read the little Latin '' Life " of him by Dr. Nathan 
Covington Brooks (1864) is uncertain; but we think 
the orator would have had a good laugh over " ' Ccesar 
habiiit suum Brutum, Carolus Primus siiiim Croni- 
zvellum, et Georgius Tertiiis — '(clamor inge}ts: ' Prodi- 
tio! Proditio !'),'' etc. 

Bearing in mind that " Tristram Shandy " did not 
appear until 1760, it is interesting to note how the book 
3 ZZ 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

impressed young Patrick Henry. Captain George 
Dabncy, a neighbor, says: 

" He [Patrick] was delighted with the * Life and Opinions 
of Tristram Shandy,' which I have known him to read several 
hours together, lying with his back upon a bed. He had a 
most retentive memory, making what he read his own. I never 
heard him quote verbatim any passages from history or poetry, 
but he would give you the fact or sentiment in his own 
expressive language." 

'' Tristram " had other admirers in those parts about 
that time. One of these was Dr. John Eustace, of 
Wilmington, N. C, who, having sent the author of 
the book a curious " Shandean " cane, received the fol- 
lowing acknowledgment from Laurence Sterne: 

" Your walking-stick is in no sense more Shandaic than in 
that of its having more handles than one. The parallel breaks 
only in this, that in using the stick every one will take the 
handle which suits his convenience. In ' Tristram Shandy ' 
the handle is taken which suits their passions, their ignorance, 
or their sensibility. There is so little true feeling in the herd 
of the world that I wish I could have got an act of Parlia- 
ment, when the books first appeared, ' that none but wise men 
should look into them.' It is too much to write books and 
find heads to understand them." 

And now we may conclude that while Patrick Henry 
was by no means a model for the youth of the land, 
he was not as undeserving as Mr. Wirt and tradition 
have proclaimed. He was a normal boy, who liked 
work as little as a colt likes the cart. Unaware of hjs 
own latent powers, he did as other boys in Hanover 
were doing — went barefoot in summer, fished, swam, 
sang, fought, did " chores," and in fall and winter 
roamed the forests with his flintlock. Thus his boy- 
hood falls short of something exemplary and inspiring 
when contrasted with that of such a Virginia celebrity, 

34 



BY NO MEANS A MODEL BOY 

for example, as Edmund Pendleton, who ploughed all 
day and busied himself with books at night, or with 
that of any one of a hundred self-made American 
heroes it would be possible to name. We all keep in 
mind a picture of young " Abe " Lincoln down on the 
hearthstone with his nose in a book and the fire flick- 
ering; but there is no such picture of young Patrick. 
He was just a normal boy; and he had a good time 
with his rod and gun — an excellent time. 



35 



Ill 

STRUGGLES NINE YEARS ON THE WRONG ROAD 

With so many daughters under the " Mount Bril- 
liant " roof, it was natural, if imprudent, that Colonel 
John Henry and his wife should push their unpractised 
sons prematurely into the workaday world. Not lack 
of parental affection, but excess of it, is indicated in 
this. Possibly the elders were troubled because Patrick 
was so fond of hounds and horn, but the greater likeli- 
hood is that they were in distress lest William — 
" Langloo " Winston's namesake — should go the wrong 
road. " Dissipated " is the word applied to William 
by the gossips of Hanover. As his beard grew, he 
acquired an estate ; served as a patriot soldier ; repre- 
sented Fluvanna in the Assembly, and, like his father, 
was called " Colonel " ; but at this time he was wild. 

For a year (1751) Patrick was a clerk in a country 
store, learning the business ; and, when he was sixteen, 
his father bought a stock of goods and " set him up in 
trade," with William as his equal partner. He was to 
weigh sugar, draw molasses, measure off calico. Such 
is the world's way with genius ; but then, how is the 
world to acquire foreknowledge of divine fire in a lad 
till the first spark shows? 

At this period there were many Scotch merchants 
east of the Blue Ridge. They were individual immi- 
grants ; and are not to be confused with the Scotch- 
Irish — the Presbyterian backwoodsmen — who helped to 
people the Shenandoah region, bringing with them 
clear-cut memories of Londonderry and standing as a 
barrier against the incursions of the savages. 

As for the colonial store, it was a prime economic 

36 



STRUGGLES 

agency. Its importance was felt not only in Patrick 
Henry's century but in the preceding one. Its invento- 
ries, as preserved in the records of the tidewater coun- 
ties, show what good customers of England the Virginia 
people were ; and cause one to wonder that the rulers of 
Great Britain should have alienated a trade of such 
volume and desirability by the enforcement of laws that 
incited finally to revolution. These stores were mainly 
at the landings and cross-roads. Many of them became 
landmarks. Their history would be the history of 
neigfhborhoods ; for in front of the counters a thousand 
scenes were enacted, stories told, characters revealed — 
all reflecting the familiar life of high families and mean 
— white people and black — throughout the Old Domin- 
ion. On Saturdays especially could Laurence Sterne 
have found subjects for character-study if he had sailed 
up the York and tarried awhile in Hanover. He would 
have found some people in log-houses and some in 
mansions ; but, for the most part, he would have been 
entertained by well-mannered folk, dwelling in frame 
structures, with an outside chimney at each end. The 
cooking would have pleased him — if not the " charac- 
ters " at the cross-roads village, with its blacksmith's, 
wheelwright's, and shoemaker's shops — biscuits made of 
complete and unadulterated flour, roast duck, goose, 
turkey, lamb, and acorn-fed pig, which, prior to the 
sticking, had been as fond of the forest as our Patrick 
himself. 

Patrick, it seems, understood that a country store 
is a school for the study of human nature. It appears 
also that he was an apt pupil. In his own small store, 
he laid the basis of that knowledge of men which never 
failed him vvhen it came his turn to play upon their 
emotions. Whether weighing sugar, drawing molasses, or 
ripping calico, he was wide awake to the human comedy. 
" Whenever a company of his customers met in the 

2>7 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

store," says Wirt, " and were themselves sufficiently gay 
and animated to talk and act as nature prompted, with- 
out concealment, without reserve, he would take no part 
in their discussions, but listen with a silence as deep 
and attentive as if under the influence of some potent 
charm. If, on the contrary, they were dull and silent, 
he would, without betraying his drift, task himself to 
set them in motion and excite them to remarks, collision, 
and exclamation." Nothing suited him better than to 
start a debate and then watch the debaters. Their logic 
or lack of it, their sophistries, their processes of thought 
— these things Patrick seized upon and measured just 
as if he had it in mind to write an American book on 
the " Human Understanding," in rivalry with Mr. 
Locke. Concerning this characteristic. Captain George 
Dabney testifies: "He [Patrick] had a most extraor- 
dinary talent for collecting the sentiments of his com- 
pany upon any subject, without discovering his own; 
and he would effect this by interrogations which to the 
company often appeared to be irrelevant to the subject." 
All of which suggests that our Patrick was something 
of a lawyer before he studied law. 

Tales about his storekeeping are told in Hanover 
to-day, after the lapse of one hundred and fifty years. 
Are they true? We doubt it. They sound as if told 
of other storekeepers and, when the names of those 
cross-roads characters had been lost, applied to Henry. 
The salt-sack tradition is a case in point. Patrick was 
stretched out at full length on a sack filled with salt, 
and was in the thick of a subtle discussion, when a 
customer entered, saying: "Have you any salt, sir?" 
" Just sold the last peck," said Patrick. 

Such anecdotes seem out of character when one goes 
over the store-book kept by Patrick in his own hand. 
There are iii pages of entries. The writing is clear, 
firm, and neat. There are no blots, but an occasional 

38 



STRUGGLES 

splutter of Patrick's pen is still recorded, so good was 
the ink he used. He wrote " sticks-hair " for hairpins; 
and spelled buckram '* buckrum," and shoe-buckles 
" shew-buckles." He seems to have supplied Hanover 
people with a great variety of articles ; and there is 
evidence in his careful bookkeeping that he tried to be 
a good merchant. The site of a store managed by him 
is pointed out to this day on the slope of a hill near 
Hanover Court-house. The place overlooks the valley 
of Court-house Creek and affords a pleasant view. 

Patrick may have been superior to his customers in 
rural dialectics, but some of them were shrewd with a 
different sort of shrewdness. While he was taking 
advantage of them in one way, they were getting the 
better of him in another. He was too good-natured. 
They played upon the young merchant as easily as he 
played upon his own flute — they ran up bills which 
they failed to meet, and within a year the firm of 
Henry and Henry went out of business. 

As between the brothers, Patrick had the better head, 
so it fell to him to look after various unsettled affairs 
connected with their mercantile misadventures. This 
took many months ; and if, meantime, Patrick saw fit 
to hunt a great deal, there was only fairness in it; 
since he, too, was being hunted — by the boy with the 
bow and arrows. He fell in love with Sarah Shelton, 
daughter of John Shelton, who lived on a farm in the 
part of Hanover known as " the Forks." It is a pity 
that Wirt, who had opportunities to ascertain all needful 
data concerning the great orator's early life, did not 
strengthen his '' Sketches " with certain essentials, 
reserving his rhetoric and romance for an account con 
spirito of Patrick's courtship of the maid whose father 
soon became the tavern-keeper at Hanover Court- 
house. We may be sure that Scott or Burns would 
have brought Patrick's first love into the true light, 

39 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

and that the odor of the magnoHa blooms in the 
branches and along the roadsides near '' the Forks " 
would have been conveyed to the reader. Those who 
know what love is to a lad of eighteen may readily 
imagine how it seized upon Patrick, and lit up all 
Hanover for him. A stripling thus possessed needs 
but a short vaulting-pole to leap a wide and dangerous 
stream if his sweetheart be upon the far side. But to 
Wirt the affair lacked appeal. If Patrick had gone 
love-making among the Pamunkeys — last of the Poca- 
hontas tribe — and had borne off their feathered belle, 
then we may be sure that the Wirt imagination would 
have been challenged ; and we should have had the story 
of the wooing, magnolias and all. But he took little 
interest in Sarah Shelton * — we do not know if she had 
grace in her heart and color in her cheek or anything 
about her except that " she was an estimable woman, of 
most excellent parentage, and brought him [Patrick] 
six negroes and a tract of poor land, containing three 
hundred acres, called ' Pine Slash.' " The word 
" slash " brings to mind the fact that Henry Clay, the 
" Mill Boy of the Slashes," was born in Patrick Henry's 
country. But this was some years later. It is still the 
fall of 1754, as far as Patrick is concerned; the times 
are hard because of the French War ; he is not yet nine- 
teen, and he has just begun a long struggle. 

* According to the William and Mary College Quarterly 
Historical Magazine, vol. vii, p. 11, William Parks, founder 
of the Virginia Gazette — the first Virginia editor — left a part 
of his estate to his daughter Eleanor Shelton, wife of John 
Shelton of Hanover. It would seem from Parks' will, proved 
at Yorktown, June 18, 1750, that "the first wife of Patrick 
Henry, Sarah Shelton, daughter of John Shelton of Hanover, 
was granddaughter of William Parks and Eleanor his wife. 
It is probable that Mrs. Henry derived her name, Sarah, from 
Mrs. Packe, who was perhaps connected by family ties with 
William Parks or his wife Eleanor." 

40 



STRUGGLES 

Though gifts came to him from " Mount BrilHant," 
and though John Shelton, who Hved on the next farm, 
helped him, Patrick must have met with many discour- 
agements. The principal crops were wheat, corn, oats, 
and tobacco. Corn was used on the farm. Oats were 
harvested when in the milky stage and fed to sheep. 
Tobacco alone was salable. Bear in mind that there 
were no markets for farm products in the Virginia of 
Patrick Henry's youth. Patrick managed his slaves ; 
" salted " the ranging stock which bore his brand — 
pigs, sheep, and cattle ; and bent his own back to labor. 
Farming was all the more difficult for him because some 
of his dower slaves were not old enough to work but 
quite old enough to eat. In fact, our Patrick becomes a 
figure to look upon. Sunburnt, sweaty, hard-handed, 
the man to whom the whole continent would by and by 
be listening now swings the hoe as he grubs new 
ground that a few more tobacco hills may be made for 
the coming harvest. 

As before intimated, we find it in our dispositions to 
lionize young Abraham Lincoln, who rested on his 
elbows when he read by firelight, and to condemn young 
Patrick Henry, who preferred to roll over on his back. 
Why we draw so positive a distinction few could 
explain ; but certainly all who in imagination delight 
to see the sweat-drops trickle down the cheeks of ado- 
lescent genius must admit that our Patrick at '' Pine 
Slash " was little better off than our Abraham when he 
swung his axe and split his rails. 

Yet it could not have been all toil and no joy at 
" Pine Slash." There was the young wife, who, in 
course of time, bore him six children. There was the 
pleasing sense of proprietorship, if not of actual pros- 
perity. There was sport, also. Nearly every farm in 
Hanover had its pack of hounds. Game abounded — 
foxes, raccoons, deer, bears, rabbits, wild turkeys, quail, 

41 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

and, in the thick of the forests, wild-cats and panthers. 

Fate, however, did not intend that Patrick Henry 
should hide his talents on " Pine Slash " farm. In the 
shape of fire, she visited him and burned his dwelling- 
house, with the greater part of his furniture. So, in 
1757, Patrick Henry ceased to be a farmer. 

This year, be it remembered, he was twenty-one. It 
is the exact half-way date in Virginia's three hundred 
years of history. Various happenings at this time gave 
rise to law-making, to controversy, and deep division. 
Peace preceded it ; a great quarrel followed it. We 
may not say that it was a year that stood at the turn 
between new and old, vet it is a memorable date. But 
the question is : Did Patrick gain or lose by his experi- 
ence at " Pine Slash " ? There is no doubt about it. He 
gained. A sagacious man who uproots tree-stumps and 
digs ditches bethinks him as he toils of kings, govern- 
ments, and taxes. Without knowing what he thinks, 
such a man reaches true conclusions. Much of the 
sound common-sense characteristic of Patrick Henry 
was in all likelihood developed under stress of hard 
work at *' Pine Slash." Much of his subsequent popu- 
larity with the plain people of Virginia was due to the 
fact that he was their spokesman, and he was their 
voice because he had learned to enter into their feelings. 
He had been one of them, and continued to be one of 
them. 

With his house in ashes, and his family to keep, it 
was necessary to sell some of his negroes ; and this he 
did — no doubt regretfully, for, as we shall see, his^ 
heart was troubled on the score of slavery. With the 
money thus acquired, he had the hardihood to start 
another store. There was a clerk to help him ; for, in 
the planting season, part of his time was spent at " Pine 
Slash " farm. Again, however, he had numerous oppor- 
tunities to study humankind. From his seat on the 

42 



STRUGGLES 

counter, his long legs dangling down, he conld listen 
and quiz, and enrich his expanding mind with the wis- 
dom of the countryside. But frequently he must have 
been a lonesome man. For the times were still hard 
in 1758, and next year the tobacco crop failed, so that 
some of his customers were unable to settle with him. 
The total of his cash sales to July, 1760, was less than 
£40. Again he gave up storekeeping. At twenty-four, 
he was face to face w4th an unpromising world. Not 
only had he thrice failed in his attempts to earn a liveli- 
hood — he was in debt. But he was not a bankrupt, as 
has been said of him ; nor was he ever sued. Of this 
latter fact he was proud till his dying day. 

As in General Grant's case a hundred years later, 
and as in numberless other instances, known or un- 
known, his qualities of superiority were in disuse — 
undiscovered by the world, unsuspected by himself. 
Was he downcast at this crisis in his affairs — was he 
ready to give up ? Not at all ; only he pondered more. 
He tried to measure his capacity. He was rational; 
sanguine; ready to trust in that future out of which a 
ship is ever due when men are young. That this is 
true of him appears from a description of the Christmas 
festivities (1759) at the house of his good friend Cap- 
tain Nathaniel West Dandridge, who had served in the 
British Navy but who now lived ashore, being fortunate 
both in his means and his mate — Dorothea Spotswood 
Dandridge, daughter of Governor Alexander Spotswood. 
The witness who describes these festivities is Thomas 
Jefferson. Writing late in life, his memory may have 
been at fault. Hostility, too, gave his words a bias. 
But, with all said, we certainly cannot do better than 
glance over the shoulder of one who now saw Henry 
for the first time and who was to become in turn his 
admirer, friend, rival, opponent, critic, and detractor. 
It is Jefferson who turns on the light: 

43 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

" My acquaintance with Mr. Henry commenced in the winter 
of 1759-60. On my way to the college [William and Mary] 
I passed the Christmas holidays at Dandridge's, in Hanover, 
to whom Mr. Henry was a near neighbor. During the festivity 
of the season I met him in society every day, and we became 
well acquainted, although I was much his junior, being then 
in my seventeenth year, and he a married man. His manners 
had something of coarseness in them ; his passion was music, 
dancing, and pleasantry. He excelled in the last, and it attached 
every one to him. You ask some account of his mind and 
information at this period, but you will recollect that we were 
almost continually in the usual revelries of the season. The 
occasion, perhaps, as much as his idle disposition, prevented 
his engaging in any conversation which might give the measure 
either of his mind or information. Opportunity was not, indeed, 
wholly wanting, because Mr. John Campbell was there, who 
had married Mrs. Spotswood, the sister of Colonel Dandridge. 
He was a man of science and often introduced conversation on 
scientific subjects. Mr. Henry had, a little before, broken up 
his store — or, rather, it had broken him up ; but his misfor- 
tunes were not traced, either in his countenance or conduct." 

If by Patrick's " coarseness " Jefferson meant simple 
rusticity, it was almost a case of " pot calling kettle 
black." For we read : " Handsome in his old age, in 
his youth Jefferson was no beauty. Then he was tall, 
thin, raw-boned; had red hair, a freckled face, and 
pointed features." His letters tattle about " Becca," 
"Sukey," "Judy," and "Belinda," and refer to that 
" dull old scoundrel, Lord Coke." 

Patrick in holiday humor probably was different from 
Patrick after the holidays. Unsettled store affairs still 
concerned him ; but he saw that he must speedily set 
foot in a new path. What should he make of himself ?^ 
What if he should study law? Would his mother-wit 
see him through ? His cousin, Judge Edmund Winston, 
wrote of him : " He may be considered at this time a 
virtuous young man, unconscious of the powers of his 
own mind, and in very narrow circumstances, making 
a last effort to supply the wants of his family." 

44 



STRUGGLES 

Neither his father nor father-in-law was able to give 
him substantial aid. " Adversity toughens manhood," 
wrote Patrick, late in life. " Be sure, my son," he once 
said to his young kinsman. Dr. John H. Rice, " the best 
men always make themselves." 

" All other experiments having failed," he made up 
his mind to study law. Accordingly, he borrowed a 
" Coke upon Littleton " — it was ten years before Black- 
stone appeared — and set to work. John Lewis, a Han- 
over lawyer, encouraged him ; his own father, a magis- 
trate, no doubt advised him ; and Peter Fontaine, a rela- 
tive, gave him a volume of forms of declarations and 
pleas. That he knew a little French is evident because 
he wrote in the book : " Le don de Pierre de la Fon- 
taine . . . Patrice Henri le Jeune, son livre. 
Avrille i8th, 1760." 

If there had been lack of zeal on Patrick's part when 
he was at school, it was not so now. The spur of neces- 
sity quickened him. He seems to have gone through 
Coke at a gallop, grasping all he needed. How long 
it was from the day he began to study law until the 
da}^ he presented himself before the Board of Exam- 
iners at Williamsburg is a mooted point. Some say 
a month ; some, six weeks ; others assert that the time 
was not so absurdly brief. 

Accounts differ, too, as to his reception by the mem- 
bers of the Board. In a memorandum made in 1814, 
Jefferson gave one account ; in talking at Monticello 
with Daniel Webster and the Ticknors, in 1824, he 
gave another ; and while the two tally in the main, 
there is a discrepancy as to the examiners. Jefferson 
says that Henry, who called on him at the College, 
admitted that he had " only been reading law six 
weeks." Peyton Randolph, John Randolph, George 
Wythe, and Robert C. Nicholas are named in the memo- 
randum as the men to whom Patrick applied for a 

45 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

license. There is apt to be confusion about the 
Randolphs of Virginia. Ariburey, in his '' Travels," said 
of them in 1779: "They are so numerous that 
they are obliged, like the clans of Scotland, to be 
distinguished by their places of residence." Just now 
we are meeting the two sons of Sir John Randolph, 
and later we shall meet his grandson Edmund, as 
well as the eccentric John Randolph of Roanoke. 
Of the two importuned by Patrick Henry, Peyton, 
the patriot brother, is the better known. He was 
" tall, stately, and grave in manner ; generous and 
hospitable ; a sound, accurate, and able lawyer." John., 
the Tory brother, became the King's Attorney-General, 
quit the colony at the outbreak of the Revolution, and 
died an unhappy alien. At this period, he was in full 
flower — learned, courtly, and of high consequence. 
Imagine the Hanover applicant, country-clad and unpol- 
ished, stepping into the presence of velvet, ruffles, and 
smooth-handed elegance, and facing a pair of critical 
and perhaps contemptuous eyes. For John Randolph 
was reluctant to begin the examination. Not until he 
had learned that two members of the Board had already 
signed the application did he consent to quiz him. 
Patrick subsequently described the ordeal for the benefit 
of his friend John Tyler ; and here is Judge Tyler's 
report : 

" A very short time was sufficient to satisfy him (Mr. Ran- 
dolph) of the erroneous conclusion which he had drawn from 
the exterior of the candidate. With evident marks of increas- 
ing surprise (produced, no doubt, by the peculiar texture and 
strength of Mr. Henry's style and the boldness and originality 
of his combinations) he continued the examination for several 
hours ; interrogating the candidate, not on the principles of 
municipal law, in which he no doubt soon discovered his defi- 
ciency, but on the laws of nature and of nations, on the policy 
of the feudal system, and on general history, which last he found 
to be his stronghold. During the very short portion of the exam- 

46 



STRUGGLES 

ination which was devoted to the common law, Mr. Randolph 
dissented, or affected to dissent, from one of Mr. Henry's 
answers, and called upon him to assign the reasons for one 
of his opinions. This produced an argument; and Mr. Ran- 
dolph now played off on him the same arts which he himself 
had so often practised on his customers, drawing him out by 
questions, endeavoring to puzzle him by subtleties, assailing 
him with declamation, and watching continually the defensive 
operations of his mind. After a considerable discussion he 
said : ' You defend your opinions well, sir, but now to the 
law and the testimony.' Hereupon he carried him to his office, 
and, opening the authorities, he said to him : ' Behold the 
force of natural reasons ; you have never seen these books, nor 
this principle of the law ; yet you are right and I am wrong ; 
and from this lesson which you have given me (you must 
excuse me for saying it) I will never trust to appearances 
again. Mr. Henry, if your industry be only half equal to your 
genius, I augur that you will do well, and become an ornament 
and an honor to your profession.' " 

John Randolph, as well as Peyton, told Jefferson 
that, though Henry was ignorant of law, he had genius 
in him. Jefferson says that Robert Carter Nicholas 
withheld his signature at first, but gave it *' on repeated 
importunities and promises of future reading." In the 
Webster talk, Nicholas is not mentioned ; but it is stated 
that '' Pendleton after much entreaty " signed the 
license. George Wythe, who was professor of law at 
William and Mary College, refused to sign. He was 
the preceptor of Chief-Justice Marshall as well as of 
Mr. Jefferson. " Middle-sized, with dark gray eyes," 
this learned worthy, famous in patriot annals, left his 
mark upon the fundamentals of the Republic. " No 
one ever expressed more courtesy in a bow," and he 
bowed young Patrick out. Nevertheless, Patrick with 
his license must have ridden with a light heart when 
he took the homeward road. As he had little to do 
that spring and summer, and as his practice did not 
begin until fall, it is likely that he kept up his law 
studies. 

47 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Yet rumor would not have it so. Rumor and Mr. 
Jefferson say that Patrick Henry came to two bars at 
once. About this time Shelton, his father-in-law, began 
to keep the tavern at Hanover Court-house. Tempo- 
rarily Patrick and his family made it their home. Jef- 
ferson calls him " a bar-keeper," John Bach McMaster 
says that for three years Henry '' tended travellers and 
drew corks." Moses Coit Tyler discredits the story. 
William Wirt Henry scouts it. " He helped his father- 
in-law, but there is no evidence that he was a bar- 
tender," says the excusatory student, ashamed that a 
man who rose so high should be placed so low. Con- 
cerning these matters, it is important to bear in mind 
that Henry's age was different from ours. Self- 
righteous as we are with regard to sanitation and other 
modernities which in some cases sprang from the labors 
of the very men we abuse, we may hold our imaginary 
noses when we speak patronizingly of the stenches of 
the colonial towns, but our attitude is unfair. Nor is 
it fair to class the Virginia tavern, which had its proper 
place in the scheme of existing society, with some cross- 
roads groggery of a later period when that scheme had 
changed. Let us remember that towns were few and 
far between. '' Where now only the meanest brands of 
whiskey can be bought," says Bruce, '' madeira, sherry, 
canary, malaga, muscadine, fayal, and other foreign 
wines were offered for sale," at the country ordinaries. 
Though this refers to the taverns of an earlier period, 
it applies as well to those of Henry's day. Moreover, 
custom then sanctioned what now would be thought a 
stigma. View the bar-keeping story as we may, it is 
allowable to conclude that Patrick would have been a 
scurvy fellow indeed had he not helped John Shelton. 
■^"^n seeking to get at the truth as to Patrick, one lays 
himself open to the charge of becoming his apologist 
(as if he needed one!), and, what is worse, of impugn- 

48 



STRUGGLES 

ing a good man, William Wirt, and, what is still worse, 
of taking issue with a great man who should be very 
close to us, considering how much he did — Thomas 
Jefferson. Wirt magnifies Henry's ignorance of the 
law. Jefferson says that he was '' too lazy to practise," 
adding : " Whenever the courts were closed for the 
winter session, he would make up a party of poor hunt- 
ers of his neighborhood, would go off with them to the 
piney woods of Fluvanna and pass weeks in hunting 
deer, of which he was passionately fond, sleeping under 
a tent before a fire, wearing the same shirt the whole 
time, and coyering all the dirt of his dress with a hunt- 
ing shirt. He never undertook to draw pleadings if he 
could avoid it, or to manage that part of a cause, and 
very unwillingly engaged but as an assistant to speak 
in the cause. And the fee was an indispensable pre- 
liminary, observing to the applicant that he kept no 
accounts, never putting pen to paper, which was true." 
Patrick Henry's fee-books, now to be seen at Red 
Hill, were kept with his own hand. They show that 
Jefferson was wrong. The first fee-book contains the 
names of sixty clients, all entered during the fall of 
1760. One page is missing, but the other pages make 
record of 175 fees. By the end of 1763, Henry had 
charged fees in 1,185 suits, "An examination of these 
entries of fees," says his grandson, " shows that Mr. 
Henry was transacting all the business of a coimtry 
practice, his courts being the county courts of Hanover 
and the surrounding counties. The county courts, held 
by justices, were the only courts in the colony, except 
the General Court, consisting of the Governor and his 
Council, at Williamsburg. The country practice, which 
embraced every branch of the profession, was the best 
training which he could have had. It was impossible 
for him to have acquired or retained it, unless he had 
been attentive in his business, and industrious in his 

4 49 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

habits, for the great bulk of it was mere routine work, ' 
such as bringing plain actions of debt." It may be 
added that Randall, in his '' Life of Jefferson," says 
that for the first four years Jefferson had but 504 cases. 
So, thanks to the good nutgall in the ink used by 
Patrick himself, we have in his fee-books evidence that 
his early work at the bar was too exacting to permit 
him to be of much use at Hanover tavern. But it is 
easy to believe that he did find time to go to Fluvanna 
after deer ; and it is agreeable to think of him as coming 
home laden with venison for John Shelton's larder. 
He was still obscure, but his struggle for bread had 
ceased. He was on the right road at last. 



50 



IV 



OUT OF OBSCURITY A SUDDEN LEAP 

" Whose life in low estate began 

And ori a simple village green ; 

Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, 

And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
And breasts the blows of circumstance, 

And grapples with his evil star ; 

Who makes perforce his merit known." 

— Tennyson : " In Memoriam." 



" Shakespeare was born so." No doubt of that. 
Nevertheless, he profited by his playhouse environment. 
Even if our lesser Virginia genius inherited his ora- 
torical aptitude, he must have been influenced by speak- 
ers heard by him in his youth. Who were they? In 
answering the question, we find ourselves reentering 
Hanover by a new and interesting approach. It is con- 
venient, nay, necessary, to ride in on the crupper of the 
Rev. William Robinson's horse. 

Robinson was a " New Light " revivalist, and when, 
in his travels, he reached Hanover County, nightfall 
found him many miles short of his appointed preaching 
place next day. So he put up at an inn, whose keeper, 
as it happened, swore abominably. Robinson rebuked 
the tavern-keeper, who bristled at once, saying: 

" Pray, sir, who are you, to take such authority on 
yourself ? " 

" I am a minister of the gospel." 

" Then you belie your looks." 

Imagine the stir among the loungers, and the laugh 
they raised ; for small-pox had robbed our itinerant of 
an eye, and a rough world had put upon him the stamp 

51 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

of a Carolina drover. He explained that he was to 
preach next day. 

'* If you will accompany me," said he, " you may be 
convinced." 

*' I will if you'll preach from a text I'll give you." 

"Agreed. What is it?" 

" ' For I am fearfully and wonderfully made.' " 

Again can we hear the shout. But traditions of that 
sermon, preached before thousands — out in the open 
under the trees — linger in the Patrick Plenry neighbor- 
hood to-day. It was the beginning of a movement that 
made Hanover famous as " the cradle of Presbyterian- 
ism " for a vast region west and south of the Chesa- 
peake. " There have lived men in Virginia," says 
Foote, writing of the struggle for religious liberty, 
'* whose names are worthy of everlasting remembrance. 
There have been events that should never be forgotten. 
There have been principles avowed whose influence will 
be felt through all time." To disregard the " New 
Light " movement, begun by Makemie on the Eastern 
Shore, and transferred by Robinson to Hanover, would 
be to ignore one of the most powerful formative 
influences upon Henry both as a thinker and as an 
orator. 

And since Robinson has come into these pages by 
way of one anecdote, let Makemie come in by way of 
another, or rather as an actor in a spirited scene — less 
dramatic than that powerful scene of the first of Sep- 
tember, 1670, when William Penn outfaced a bench 
of ten justices at the Old Bailey, but strong and moving 
nevertheless. 

Let us join the spectators in Lord Cornbury's Council 
Chamber, in New York, on a winter afternoon between 
three and four o'clock. Enter, from the prison at Fort 
Anne, the Rev. Francis Makemie, of Accomac, in Vir- 
ginia, and the Rev. John Hampton, of Maryland. 

52 



OUT OF OBSCURITY 

" Lord Cornbury : * How dare you to take it upon you to 
preach in my government without license ? ' 

" Makemie : ' We have liberty from an Act of Parliament 
made in the first year of the reign of King William and Queen 
Mary, which gave us liberty, with which law we have complied.' 

" Cornbury : ' None shall preach in my government without 
my license. . . . New York is of her Majesty's dominions; 
but the Act of Toleration does not extend to the plantations 
by its own intrinsic virtue or any intention of the legislat- 
ors. . . . That Act of Parliament was made against stroll- 
ing preachers, and you are such and shall not preach in my 
government.' 

" Makemie : ' The Quakers . . . tliey travel and teach 
over the plantations, and are not molested.' 

" Cornbury : ' I have troubled some of them, and will trouble 
them more. . . . You shall not spread your pernicious 
doctrines here.' 

" Makemie : ' As to our doctrines, my lord, we have our 
Confession of Faith. ... I challenge all the clergy of 
York . . . ' 

" Cornbury : ' You must give bond and security for your good 
behavior, and also bond and security to preach no more in my 
government.' 

" Makemie : ' We neither can nor dare.' 

"Cornbury: 'Then you must go to jail.'" 

But Makemie, the founder of Presbyterianism in 
xAmerica, labored near the seashore. He was unknown 
in the great Anglican region west of the bay. For more 
than a century the Established Church had been supreme 
there. It was, in reality, an outlying part of England. 
" Society," says A. G. Bradley, '' was tenaciously Eng- 
lish, based upon landed property and to some extent the 
negroes. Imagine an English county in the last century, 
with the higher aristocracy removed and the squires of 
small or moderate fortune left, and you have something 
like a county of Tidewater Virginia in 1736." It was a 
squirarchy. '' Primogeniture and entail were in vogue, 
and a herald at Williamsburg sat in judgment on shields 
and quarterings." As for the clergy, their hold seemed 
as strong upon the colony as upon England — stronger, 

53 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

indeed, for the Scotch-Irish dissenters had not as yet 
begun to people the valley of the Shenandoah. 

Readers of that Virginia classic, William Meade's 
*' Old Churches, Ministers, and Families," need not be 
reminded that many clergymen of the Established 
Church were men of dignity and character. To use 
Edmund Randolph's words, '' they were planted on 
glebes, with comfortable houses, decent salaries, some 
perquisites, and a species of rank which was not wholly 
destitute of unction." Whether they were willing or 
not, the taxpayers annually paid each clergyman 16,000 
pounds of tobacco; for marrying the fee was 400 
pounds ; for burying, 200. There were " sweet-scented 
parishes " and " Orinoco parishes," according to the 
variety of tobacco grown. Down near the North Caro- 
lina line the clergy were paid in tar. 

Perhaps the light-hearted life led by the " Tuckahoe " 
gentry caused some of the ministers to lose themselves 
in worldliness. The Virginians lived in plenty, and 
dressed in style. They did not loiter when in the sad- 
dle, but moved at a sharp hand-gallop, their horses 
taking the roads unshod. They used much physic to 
ward off fever-and-ague, and drank much with the 
same object. General Washington, be it recalled, rec- 
ommended as *' a cure for chills " two glasses of Ma- 
deira, followed the next morning by a glass of claret. 
But the Virginians also drank with no object at all. 
When they died, there was no famine at their funerals ; 
it was a feast rather, and a flow ; and there was more 
real drunkenness than real sorrow. The Rev. Andrew 
Burnaby, Vicar of Greenwich, travelling among them in 
1760, found them " indolent, easy, good-natured, 
extremely fond of society, and much given to convivial 
pleasures. They are haughty and jealous of their liber- 
ties," he added, " impatient of restraint, and scarcely 
bear the thought of being controlled by a superior 

54 



OUT OF OBSCURITY 

power." " Generally speaking," says another traveller, 
*' the young men are gamblers, cock-fighters, and horse 
jockies. To hear them converse, you would imagine 
that the grand point of all science was properly to fix 
a gaff and touch with dexterity the tail of a cock while 
in combat. At almost every tavern on the public roads 
there is a billiard table, a backgammon table, cards, 
and other implements of various games." '* Tom 
Jones " evidently would not have been lost among the 
Virginians of his time. Yet we are concerned in these 
pages less about " Tom " than about *' the Rev. Mr. 
Square " and " the Rev. Mr. Thwackem." Beyond 
doubt, there were flesh-and-blood " Thwackems " and 
" Squares " in the tidewater country ; and there were 
numerous other clergymen utterly lacking in spirit- 
uality. Some of them had been sent over the water 
merely that the British Isles might be rid of them. 
When Commissary Blair, the founder of William and 
Mary College, who was in the old country seeking 
funds, reminded Sir Edmund Seymour that there were 
souls to save in Virginia as well as in England, Sey- 
mour replied : " Souls ! Damn your souls ! Grow 
tobacco ! " Some of the colonial clergy were to be seen 
at the races; at the cock-pit; at cards. They drank to 
drunkenness. One was customarily strapped in his gig 
when homeward bound from a feast. Another, with an 
undivorced wife in England, married a Virginia widow. 
Another fought a duel within sight of his former 
church. Another denounced the brilliant " New 
Light " Waddell as a " pick -pocket, dark-lantern, moon- 
light preacher and enthusiast." But not all were 
unworthy. A story is told of an old lady who, having 
returned from church, called out to her maid to take off 
her clothes — stiff brocades — '' for she had heard so 
much of hell, damnation, and death that it would take 
her all the evening to get cool." 

55 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

These instances of clerical worldliness are here inter- 
woven with the Patrick Henry tale because they serve 
to put us in touch with the times, and because they 
explain how a tiny moral seed dropped in Hanover, 
as by a passing bird, grew into a thriving plant. When 
Patrick was a boy, a farmer of the neighborhood 
picked up a stray leaf lost by a Scotch immigrant from 
a book of sermons and read it with astonishment. He 
sent to London for the book itself — Boston's " Four- 
fold State.'' Some of his friends read it; and there 
was a sensation in those parts. Samuel Morris built a 

reading house," and soon other " reading houses " 
were constructed. The leaders repeatedly paid fines for 
non-attendance at the parish churches. Summoned to 
Williamsburg and examined by the Governor, the dis- 
senters still held out. They had no complaint against 
the Anglican doctrine, or its beautiful ceremonials ; but 
the parsons, they said, had ceased to fulfil their true 
ministerial function. For a long time they did not 
know that they had become converts to the Geneva 
school, and were astonished at last to find themselves 
Presbyterians. Their chief thought had been : " Our 
old churches have lost something, and here now we have 
found that something." It was spirituality. It made 
all the difference. So that was why they had sent for 
the fervid Robinson, who began b}^ converting the god- 
less tavern-keeper ; and that was why they begged Rob- 
inson to make known in the North their lack of a min- 
ister. Because he would not accept pay for his preach- 
ing, they secretly filled his saddlebags Vv^ith money. 

And now a romance of religion ; for Robinson spent 
the money in educating Samuel Davies, and when young 
Davies was ready to preach, he faithfully rode down 
into Hanover. Robinson was uncouth — not so his hand- 
some protege, a man of presence. It was he who faced 
the learned but biased lawyers at Williamsburg in 




THE REV. SAMUEL UAVIES 



(Known as "The Apostle of Virginia," and lateral the headof Princeton 
College. Patrick Henry found in Davies a model in effective oratory ; but the 
pupil outdid the master. ) 



y 



OUT OF OBSCURITY 

advocacy of his right to preach, reviving the half- 
forgotten Toleration Act, and opening a way for relig- 
ious liberty. He was called " the Apostle of Virginia." 
He went to England to raise money for Princeton Col- 
lege, of which he subsequently became president. 
George H. heard him preach, and so pleased was his 
Majesty that he interrupted the services to express his 
approval ; whereupon Davies, a master of solemnity, 
said : " When the lion roareth, the beasts of the forest 
tremble ; when the Lord speaketh, let the kings of the 
earth keep silence." 

" He is an honest man ! an honest man ! " said the 
King to his courtiers next day, when he sent for Davies 
and gave him fifty guineas towards the college fund. 

Davies rebuked cant as well as kings. " It is a dread- 
ful thing," said he, " to talk nonsense in the name of the 
Lord." 

Such was the scholarly Samuel Davies, who, possess- 
ing all the graces of gesture and an almost Miltonian 
command of language, stood before young Patrick 
Henry as a model in oratory. Patrick's grandfather, 
Isaac Winston, was one of the Hanover dissenters ; so 
was Patrick's mother ; so were two of his sisters. They 
went to " the Fork Church " to hear Davies preach. 
Writing of Mrs. Llenry, her great-grandson says: 
'"' She was in the habit of riding in a double gig, taking 
with her young Patrick, who, from the first, showed a 
high appreciation of the preacher. Returning from 
church, she would make him give the text and a reca- 
pitulation of the discourse. She could have done her 
son no greater service." 

Dr. Green, of Princeton, says that Patrick Henry 
" spoke in terms of enthusiasm of Mr. Davies. It is 
supposed that he first kindled the fire and afiForded the 
m.odel of Henry's elocution." The eloquence of Davies, 
testifies Howe, " made a deep impression on his 

57 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

[Henry's] youthful mind; and he always remarked that 
Davies was the greatest orator he had ever heard." 

Moreover, Patrick had a patriotic as well as ora- 
4 torical model in Davies, who, between 1755 and 1759, 
preached many sermons on the French and Indian War. 
It was he who first eulogized '' that heroic youth. Colonel 
Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has 
hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for some 
important service to his country." Patrick was eleven 
years old when Davies entered Hanover ; twenty-two 
when he left. And since '' Study Men " was Patrick's 
motto, there can be no doubt that he studied the great 
pulpit orator. 

Having thus given some idea of the " New Lights," 
and having set forth the shortcomings of the established 
i clergy, we may move forward with the young lawyer 
to the fall of 1763, when there culminated a long quarrel 
of great importance to him individually and to the pub- 
lic as well. At its inception there was fierce pam- 
phleteering over the '* Parsons' Cause," and to this 
day men dispute about the rights and wrongs involved 
in it. Without further ado, we may muster the salient 
facts and march them out for inspection : 

Let it be borne in mind that the colonial church was 
planted on the same day the colony itself was planted. 
Part and parcel of the scheme of government in Vir- 
ginia, and performing certain useful civil functions, 
such as the care of the poor, it drew its revenues by 
taxation. Nearly every one over sixteen years of age 
was subject to this tax. Vestrymen, who held the 
\. parish purse, filled vacancies in their own membership, 
so that they too often grew to be close corporations in 
the hands of a few families. Accordingly, by age, by 
custom, and by generous if not reverent complaisance on 
the part of the people, the church was deeply rooted. 
. In modern speech, it was a monopolistic body. Minis- 
\ 58 



OUT OF OBSCURITY 

ters were ordained in England and to England they 
looked for episcopal control, though the Bishop of Lon- 
don had a representative at Williamsburg known as a 
Commissary. Dean Swift wished to be sent out as 
Bishop over the Virginia Lilliputians, but there was 
never a colonial Bishop in the Old Dominion. An estab- 
lished church without a real head ; a government with- 
out a real head — there was constant temptation to look 
beyond Williamsburg to London ; and London was alto- 
gether too busy with its own troubles to do well by the 
colonists. 

Let it also be borne in mind that Virginia had no 
power to com money. There was Spanish, as well as 
British, specie in the colony ; but it was scarce. Tobacco 
was money. " Paid ten pounds of tobacco for ' duck- 
inge ' a scold " is a Seventeenth Century item that illus- 
trates the point. At various places there were public 
warehouses, where inspectors gave receipts for tobacco ; 
and these certificates of deposit circulated as money. 
By a law of 1696, the annual salary of every clergyman 
was raised from 13,333 poi-inds of tobacco to 16,000, to 
be levied by the several vestries on their parishes. In 
1748, by which time the value of the staple had 
increased fifty per cent., a glebe suit, won by a rector, 
led to the enactment of a more particular law, approved 
by the King, in which it was specified that the levies 
for the clergy were to be '' laid in nett tobacco " — 16,000 
pounds for each. 

Soon the French War began. Times grew hard. 
" Our people are loaded with debt," wrote a man whom 
we shall meet in Hanover Court-house, by and by — the 
Rev. James Maury, of Fredericksville parish, Louisa 
County. His letter is dated August 9, 1755. " Money 
is much scarcer than it has been for years. Our spring 
crops of wheat, barley, oats, and rye have been ruined 
by an early drought. Our Indian corn . . . has 

59 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

been hurt by a later drought. . . . Our frontiers 
are daily ravaged by savages." 

Yet, in the face of these facts, the clergy asked for 
an increase in salary. It is allowable to think that 
Patrick Henry, Junior, as a tobacco planter and tax- 
payer, viewed the salary-raising suggestion with less 
favor than did Patrick Henry, Senior, who would have 
benefited by its adoption. Instead of raising salaries, 
the Burgesses passed an option law for the relief of the 
people. They enacted (1755) that for ten months all 
tobacco debts should be discharged in money at the rate 
of twopence per pound. Hence the law was called the 
Twopenny Act. It was impracticable to send it to 
England for the King's sanction, though it suspended 
the law of 1748 which the King had ratified. 

Again, in 1758, there was a short crop. The price 
advanced. The Burgesses reenacted the Twopenny 
Law, which was to remain in force, not ten months only, 
but a year. This time a bitter controversy arose. 
Other salaried persons were affected by the law, but 
it was the clergy who fought it. First they held a con- 
vention. Then their chief pamphleteer, the Rev. John 
Camm, who wrote " The Colonels Dismounted " in 
reply to papers by Colonel Richard Bland and Colonel 
Landon Carter, was sent to England to lay their griev- 
ance before King George. This same Camm, let us 
note, is the hero of one of the most popular love stories 
of his day. In the interest of a friend, who was in love 
with Miss Betsey Hansford, Professor Camm went to 
see the young lady, praised her worshipper, and quoted 
the Scriptures to convince her that she should marry. 
Like Priscilla, whom Miles Standish wished but John 
Alden won, Miss Betsey shook her head as she eyed 
the learned and handsome bachelor. At last she told 
him that if he would go home and open his Bible he 
might find her answer in II Samuel, xii, 7. It was: 

60 



OUT OF OBSCURITY 

" Thou art the man ; " and Miss Hansford became Mrs. 
Camm. He was successful with the King, too. The , 
King pronounced the Twopenny Law no law at all. v 
And when news of this ruling reached Virginia, various 
clergymen began suits in the county courts to collect 
the difference between £133 6s. 8d. in depreciated 
paper money^ the salary as paid, and tobacco worth 
i 400, the salary due. 

Were the ministers right or wrong? The critics of 
the Twopenny Act of 1758 insist that, as the laborer 
is worthy of his hire, so was the parson of his pay. In 
early colonial days, " when the price of tobacco w^as 
down," as Moses Coit Tyler expresses it, '' the parson 
was expected to suffer the loss ; when the price of 
tobacco was up, he was allowed to enjoy the gain." 
The fat years made up for the lean. " It was a rough 
but obvious system of fair play," thinks Tyler, who 
declares that the side upon which Patrick Henry found 
himself was '' wrong both in law and in equity." Dr. 
Tyler, a staunch churchman, drew his conclusions from 
facts supplied by other churchmen, such as the Rev. 
James Maury, plaintiff in the test case (whose letters 
on the '' Parsons' Cause " are published in Miss Anne 
Maury's " Memoirs of a Huguenot Family "), and Wil- 
liam Stevens Perry in *' Historical Collections relating 
to the American Colonial Church " ; and perhaps there 
is too much Episcopal fervor in what he says. To 
mulct the clergy when a fat year came was " a mutila- 
tion of justice." By the law of 1748 was there not a 
valid contract between everv vestrv and its minister? 
In nullifying this law there was breach of contract and 
there was breach of faith with the King. Indeed, the 
evil spirit of repudiation lurked in the whole scurvy 
business. " Such, then, in all its fresh and unadorned 
rascality," concludes Dr. Tyler, " was the famous 
' option law ' or Twopenny Act of 1758." 

61 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Bishop Meade, always benignant, is less severe upon 
those who sought to commute the salaries of the par- 
sons. Yet that the parsons were wronged he has no 
doubt. Some of them were unable to marry respect- 
ably on such small pay. Another great grievance was 
that they were obliged to spend their allowance long 
before it was received. Hence they bought at disad- 
vantage, were often in debt, and suffered the humilia- 
tion of seeing inferior men come among them as fel- 
low-ministers. But the good Bishop admits that a 
countenance brighter than the sun had been withdrawn 
from them because in many ways they were a corrupt 
clergy. Similarly, others look upon the proceedings of 
the Burgesses as a subterfuge in denial of a right sanc- 
tioned by long usage. They speak of Lieutenant- 
, Governor Fauquier's refusal to veto the act as " cow- 
"-^rdly," and of Patrick Henry's onslaught as " dema- 
!^ogic." A juggle is a juggle, they say; and the appeal 
\o the people was made in full knowledge of their selfish 
bias. Thus these critics put all the wrongs on one side 
and all the rights on the other. 

The truth is, there were rights and wrongs on both 
sides. The colony was growing. " Like the straw- 
berry," says Charles Campbell, *' the population con- 
tinually sent ' runners ' to possess the land." In Frede- 
rick and Augusta counties little tobacco grew ; and it 
w^as the wish of the vestries there to pay ministers in 
money. The Burgesses petitioned the King for leave to 
act on their own initiative in certain circumstances, but 
his Majesty was stiff-necked. Every year new prob- 
lems requiring speedy solution arose. High tide dam- 
aged great quantities of tobacco stored in the riverside 
magazines, and the Legislature had to recompense the 
owners of the tobacco. Should they forever await the 
King's sanction in colonial matters of purely local or 
emergent nature? They voted the planters twopence 

62 



OUT OF OBSCURITY 

per pound for the tobacco, and everybody was satisfied. 
Tradition, in fact, had made twopence the standard 
price. Yet here were the clergy jarring the very floor 
of heaven because, forsooth, twopence was not enough 
for them ! 

It is a mistake to suppose that the dispute was between 
the aristocrats and the rabble. In the House of Bur- 
gesses were many vestrymen, and other vestrymen 
throughout the colony were against the clergy. More 
important than the parsons, sometimes better educated, 
substantial in every sense — these squires were aware of 
a change then pending in the relations between the regal 
government and their own colony. Had not James Otis 
in Boston just made his powerful speech against gen- 
eral search warrants? And why should the King, an 
absentee, traverse the judgment of men on the spot? 
Ships could go and come ; but to be at the mercy of 
the whimsical ocean winds and of men in England even 
more whimsical was a hard condition. If it were a 
crime to misread the King's instructions or disobey 
them, it was a greater crime to misgovern a people 
whose happiness or misery depended upon the enact- 
ment of measures affecting all. Thinking thus, many 
Virginians regarded the emergency device of the Bur- 
gesses as an act of forethought, wisdom, and justice. 
A few, especially in Hanover, went further. Was it 
right to tax money out of a man's purse in support of a 
creed to which his conscience was hostile ? No ; it was 
wrong. It was an extortion. Custom, the King, and 
certain complacent folk who fortified themselves behind ; 
conventional godliness, and flattered themselves that 
they were on the side of heaven, were easy as to the 
tax; but the common mind was aware of its lack of 
basis in reason, and the dissenters were keenly alive' 
to its injustice. 

But " it takes men a weary while," says John Fiske, 

63' 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

"to learn the wickedness of anything that puts gold into 
their purses ; " and some of the Virginia parsons, reas- 
sured by the King's disallowance of the Twopenny 
Act, went confidently into court. 

The chief of these cases was instituted by the Rev. 
James Maury, who on April i, 1762, brought suit in 
the County Court of Hanover against Thomas Johnson 
and Tarlton Brown, collectors of the levies in the parish 
of Fredericksville, Louisa County. Mr. Maury, who 
taught Jefferson,''' and gave him his first inkling of 
America's future greatness, was a man of high standing. 
Through his mother, a Fontaine, he came of the Mana- 
kintown Huguenots. Mark the quaintness of this auto- 
biographical bit : " I am planted about two miles to 
the northeast of Walker's, under the Southwest Moun- 
tains, in Louisa, close by one of the head springs of the 
main northern branch of the Pamunkey, which runs 
through my grounds — a very wholesome, pleasant, 
fertile situation, where, I thank God, I enjoy more 
blessings and comforts than I deserve." Among his 
blessings were twelve children, and it may be put down 
to his credit that a parson with twelve children is justi- 
fied even in going to law to get his pay. Why this 
patriarch (whose grandson, Matthew Fontaine Maury, 
became one of mankind's greatest benefactors) turned 
his back upon his own country to bring suit in Hanover, 
among the dissenters, is not clear. But it is clear 
enough that he put his case in good hands. His counsel 

* Maury kept a school in Walker parish, where he taught 
" five boys who became signers of the Declaration of Independ- • 
ence." Three of them got to be President of the United States. 
It is said that Maury pointed out to Jefferson that there must 
be a great river where the Missouri was afterwards discovered. 
He filled Jefferson's mind with the glorious possibilities of the 
great West, then little known. See the " Life of Matthew 
Fontaine Maury," by his daughter, Diana Fontaine Maury 
Corbin. 

64 



OUT OF OBSCURITY 

was Peter Lyons, " renowned for his refined polite- 
ness," who was then well up towards the head of the 
bar and subsequently became President of the Virginia 
Court of Appeals. Lyons, born in Ireland, was the 
son-in-law of James Power, probably the leading lawyer 
in America at that time and certainly the possessor of 
the finest law library on the continent. Being fond of 
Henry, Lyons called him ** Young Pat." The one died 
and was buried at the place where the other was born, 
" Studley " — long the Lyons homestead. \^ 

The counsel for the defence, John Lewis, claimed 
that the collectors had strictly comphed with the act of 
September 14, 1758. But the King had disallowed the 
act ; so the plaintiff demurred. After argument, No- 
vember 5, 1763, the court sustained the demurrer. The 
act was declared null and void. It was " very much to 
their credit," thinks Mr. Wirt, that the court thus 
" breasted the popular current." Apparently, Parson 
Maury had won. So thought Mr. Lewis, at least; for 
he spoke of the case as hopeless. Nevertheless, a con- 
cluding step was necessary. On the first day of Decem- 
ber a special jury was to examine whether the plaintiff j 
had sustained any damages, and what. So the defend- 
ants employed Patrick Henry to plead before the jury 1 
in their behalf. He was their forlorn hope. 

If we should put ourselves in the places of some of 
those who in great numbers, riding on horseback or in 
coaches, gigs, or carts, moved towards the Court-house 
on the Monday morning fixed upon for the award of 
damages, we should see and hear much to entertain us. 
To realize the scene, we must place perukes on the heads 
of the gentlemen in coaches and Hogarthian clothes on 
all. We must restore the trees so as to bring back a 
Virginia wilderness — ^brown leaves under the oaks, 
scarlet on the sumac, and red berries on the holly. But 
the chief colors would be the dark greens of the cedar 
5 6s 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

and pine and the light yellow of waving sedge thick upon 
abandoned fields. If we were in the road that led past 
the Patrick Henry store, we should descend a hill, ford 
a creek, take a gentle rise to a village of scattering 
houses, and either join the crowd at the tavern or the 
greater crowd on the Court-house green just across the 
way. A storm swept this green of a grove of ancient 
locust trees some years ago, but the old Court-house 
stands as it stood then — a squat, substantial, roomy 
building of English brick. Quaint arched openings 
admit one to a paved porch, and this to the court-room. 
At the time of the trial of the " Parsons' Cause," half 
of the court-room floor-space was bricked and bench- 
less, so that many of the spectators must have stood. 
In the court-yard that m.orning were assembled great 
numbers of the best people of the two parishes of Han- 
, over, as well as some from parishes a long way off. 
There were planters in velvet with powdered hair, long 
queues, and white top-boots, and there were planters in 
homespun — rough-and-ready gentry who could fix a 
gaff as skilfully as they could crack a whip or plough 
a furrow. " The decision upon the demurrer," we are 
told, " had produced a violent ferment among the peo- 
ple, and equal exultation on the part of the clergy, who 
attended the court in a large body, either to look down 
opposition, or to enjoy the final triumph of this hard- 
fought contest, which they now considered as perfectly 
secure." Before the court-crier had spoken his ** Oyez ! 
oyez ! " twenty of the parsons had appeared ; and now, 
as it is interesting to note, another came riding up in 
his carriage — the Rev. Patrick Henry. His nephew 
and namesake was at that moment in the court-yard 
throng, with Colonel Samuel Meredith. Together they 
approached the carriage, and, before its occupant could 
alight, Patrick Junior begged Patrick Senior not to 
come into court that day. 

66 



3 g 




Jm^ 



■ 

I 



OUT OF OBSCURITY 

"Why?" asked the elder. 

" Because I am engaged in opposition to the clergy," 
said Patrick Junior ; " and your appearance there might 
strike me with such awe as to prevent me from doing 
justice to my clients." 

" Rather than that effect should be produced," said 
Patrick Senior, " I will not only absent myself from the 
Court-house, but will return home." 

Whereupon he reined about, and drove off towards 
his glebe. 

Soon thereafter, court opened. The room was filled, 
and many stood in the doorway. On the bench sat 
Colonel John Henry, the presiding justice, flanked by 
the other justices. It was a long bench, and upon it the 
twenty clergymen found places. The Rev. Alexander 
White, who had lost a similar suit in King WilHam 
County, was one of the twenty. Confident though they 
were, they wished to see the final act in a judicial drama 
that meant so much to their purses and prestige. We 
can see the twenty grave and learned ministers as they 
thus sat in a long row side by side. Under their wigs 
there was no thought of disaster. 

But the parson-plaintiff, sitting with his counsel in 
the bar, was less at ease. No sooner was the case called 
than he grew anxious as to the character of the jury. 
The sheriff went forth to summon the twelve men. He 
entered a public room full of " gentlemen " and told his 
errand. One excused himself ; the others he let alone. 
He met a " gentleman " on the green and made shift 
to do without him. " Hence," complains Mr. Maury, 
" he went among the vulgar herd. After he had selected 
and set down upon his list about eight or ten of these, 
I met him with it in his hand, and on looking over it, 
observed to him that they were not such jurors as the 
court had directed him to get. . . . Nay, though 
I objected against them, yet, as Patrick Henry, one of 

67 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

the defendants' lawyers, insisted they were honest men, 
and, therefore, unexceptionable, they were immediately 
called to the book and sworn." Three of them were 
** New Lights " — George Dabney, Samuel Morris, and 
Roger Shackelford ; but what had Parson Maury 
expected in the county of Hanover, with its lingering 
echoes of the great dissenter's eloquence ? 

The hearing now began. Lyons, for Maury, intro- 
duced the bond of the defendants as collectors and the 
vestry's order for a levy, 1759, in behalf of the plaintiff. 
Then he examined two tobacco-dealers, to determine 
the price of tobacco that year, and rested his evidence. 
The defence introduced Maury's receipt for the sum 
paid, and rested its evidence. It appeared that while 
Maury had received but £144, he was entitled to three 
times that sum. So Judge Lyons urged in the plea 
which he forthwith made to the jury. Having, in con- 
clusion, eulogized the ministers of the Anglican Church 
throughout the Old Dominion, the accomplished and 
graceful speaker resumed his seat. 

Then Henry arose. His manner was in unhappy 
contrast with that of his antagonist. Through the eyes 
of tradition we can see him now as he stood abashed 
before the court, the array of clerical dignitaries, and 
the pack of people who looked upon him neither with 
favor nor in disfavor, but tolerantly, excusing his youth, 
his awkwardness, and his faltering tongue. 

For Patrick faltered. The words he wished to use 
fiew out of his reach. There were hesitations. There 
were pauses. People hung their heads. The parsons 
gave sidelong glances at each other, up and down their 
bench. It was a sly if mute way of saying : " The 
bumpkin! Look at him! What have we to fear from 
such a man? " His father, ashamed of him, sank back 
in his seat. This, then, was that son of his who had 
plunged into the law ! Evidently Patrick's talents were 

68 



OUT OF OBSCURITY 

better suited to stump-grubbing on *' Pine Slash " farm. 
Sorry news for his mother, this ; a mortifying situation. 

But in a few moments Patrick mastered his tongue. 
Fortunately, there was that in his voice which was as a 
challenge to the listener, be he friendly or hostile. It 
was a manly voice, free from artificialities, and there 
was an appeal in it. No sooner had he found his lost 
words than he began to put them together and modulate 
them and send them where he pleased. It was a send- 
ing voice — it fell pleasantly upon the ears of those who 
sat beside him, and at the same time reached the ears 
of those who, standing in the court-yard, pressed 
inward or tiptoed to get a glimpse of the scene. Some 
old farmer on the outskirts of the crowd might well have 
said : " With that voice of his, Patrick could make 
love in a corner, or call a hound a mile away." The 
very pauses, at first so painful, because they foretokened 
a breakdown, now became effective. They had a pur- 
pose — these later pauses. They meant : " Is not this 
true, my friends? Think a moment — your heads are 
your^own. These things I have just said to you — are 
the}^ not so? Come, in all conscience, now, are they 
not God's truth ? " It was like the act of a hunter who, 
running on ahead, would stop, turn, and beckon to those 
who followed. So the people in the court-room fol- 
lowed Patrick in his argument ; and when he paused, 
they closed up quickly, eager to move on. 

As yet, however, the twenty parsons on the bench 
were not at all distressed. To them this was a 
harangue — an ad captandum talk, incapable of effect. 
Some were unappreciative of the power of sincere 
speech upon the breasts of men. They themselves were 
much given to thrusting their noses down towards the 
lectern and droning the Word of God into the cushion.- 
They felt, too, that the upstart and intemperate orator 
was beyond his depth. What ! This youth who but 

69 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

lately had swung a plow, and wormed tobacco, dis- 
coursing on the duties of his Majesty the King of 
England ! 

Sure enough, Patrick was essaying much and risking 
much. Few of his spoken words have come down to us. 
but his argument ran : There was a mutuality of obli- 
gation upon King and people. Between them there 
were binding covenants tantamount to a solemn con- 
tract. It was for the King to protect ; it was for the 
people to sustain and obey. If either broke a covenant, 
then was the other free from obligation. In Virginia 
the Burgesses were the House of Commons ; the Council 
the House of Lords ; the Governor the King. The law 
of 1758, approved by Burgesses, Council, and Governor, 
was a good law, a salutary law, a valid law — and its 
disallowance by King George was an instance of 
misrule. 

At this stage a great change came over him. His 
mind seemed to gain a glow from its own action ; and 
now, says Wirt, " was first witnessed that mysterious 
and almost supernatural transformation of appearance 
which the fire of his ow^n eloquence never failed to 
work in him." His attitude became erect and lofty ; 
his action graceful and commanding ; his voice a ver- 
itable power and persuasion. Genius lit him and flashed 
from him, and what he did as well as what he said served 
to infect, to thrill, to captivate. Some twenty minutes 
before, he had been as a lout in his own father's eyes ; 
now tears ran down his father's cheeks. All the jus- 
tices bent forward. Every one now recognized the 
presence there of a great orator. 

He continued, still boldly speaking of the sovereign. 
What of a king who disallows a salutary act such as 
the act at issue? He ceases to be the father of his 
people. He forfeits all right to the obedience of his 
subjects. He degenerates into a tyrant. 

70 




^'t^-tz-y ^e^-7-^ i 




(King's counsel in the " Parsons' Cause." He succeeded Judge Edmund 
Pendleton as President of the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia. From 
Thomas Sully's painting, in the court-room at Richmond.) 



OUT OF OBSCURITY 

Judge Lyons arose in heat. 

" The gentleman has spoken treason," he cried, " and 
I am astonished that your Worships can hear it without 
emotion or any mark of dissatisfaction." 

*' Treason, treason," came in a murmur from behind 
the bar. 

But the justices refused to stay the orator, who now 
turned upon the clergy. It was their work in life, he 
said, to safeguard the people in high matters unregu- 
lated by the secular laws. If they failed in this, they 
failed in everything, and were of no use in the great 
body politic. Was a clergyman to set an example of 
selfishness ; to want more than his lay brother ; to become 
a grasper, a worldling? Was such a clergyman serving 
God or was he serving himself? Shame upon greed — 
shame especially upon pulpit greed ! " We have heard 
a great deal," he said, " about the benevolence and holy 
zeal of our reverend clergy, but how is this manifested? 
Do they manifest their zeal in the cause of religion and 
humanity by practising the mild and benevolent pre- 
cepts of the Gospel of Jesus ? Do they feed the hungry 
and clothe the naked ? Oh, no, gentlemen ! Instead 
of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, these 
rapacious harpies would, were their power equal to their 
will, snatch from the hearth of their honest parishioner 
his last hoe-cake, from the widow and her orphan chil- 
dren her last milch cow ! the last bed — nay, the last 
blanket, from the lying-in woman ! " 

This was more than the clergymen present could 
stand. At once they got up from their bench and filed 
out into the court-yard. But Henry heeded neither the 
cries of " treason " nor the rebuke from the clergymen. 
He went on and on — now persuasive, now vehement. 
His plea lasted nearly an hour. He spoke of the bond- 
age of the people, and warned the jury that unless they 
seized upon the opportunity now at hand to sustain the 

71 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

liberties of the Commonwealth, they would rivet their 
own chains — perpetuate their own servitude. Yes, they 
must find for the plaintiff; but let it be for no more 
than one farthing. One farthing would suffice. And 
that was the end. 

In vain did Judge Lyons, wdio at once arose, seek to 
lessen the effect of the powerful plea. The jury was 
hardly out before it was in again with its verdict — one 
penny damages. 

The victory was complete ; for though the parsons 
would appeal to the General Court, what good would it 
do them? The matter would go to the King, but his 
Majesty would think twice before provoking rebellion 
in such a cause. 

There now followed a hearty ovation to the orator. 
In spite of the sheriff's cries, an uproar arose. The 
people pressed around Henry, seized him, lifted him to 
willing shoulders, and, with shouts of jubilation, bore 
him into the court-yard, w^here he was so lionized that 
his head would surely have been turned had he been 
a less sensible man. 

Not only was he proof against this flattery, but he 
had it in heart to go find good Mr. Maury and beg his 
pardon for whatever offence he might have given him 
in assailing the gentlemen of the cloth. And just here 
there comes in a curious matter upon which the student 
of Patrick Henry's character may speculate as he 
pleases. " He apologized to me for what he had said," 
writes Maury to his friend Camm, " alleging that his 
sole view in engaging in the cause, and in saying what- 
he had, was to render himself popular. You see, then," 
he adds, '' it is so clear a point in this person's opinion 
that the ready road to popularity here is to trample 
underfoot the interests of religion, the rights of the 
church, and the prerogatives of the crown." 

Smarting under defeat, Mr. Maury may have made 

72 



OUT" OF OBSCURITY 

more out of a chance remark, uttered In excitement, 
than was meant b}' the orator, who certainly was not a 
demagogue. So good an authority as Charles Campbell 
says that Henry " endeared himself to the people, 
though he never courted their favor by flattery." It is 
doubtless true that popularity was sweet to him; and 
it is a further fact that the wish to get on in the law 
led him to smother his compunctions in this instance 
and voice the radicalism of rising democracy. 

But whether Patrick sought to placate Mr. Maury on 
account of Episcopal friendship or good-heartedness or 
remorse, there is no reason to think that he did so 
through fear. For a while, indeed, the parsons were of 
the mind to have him up for treason ; but retaliation 
was impracticable.''' He lost a few friends, but gained 
many, adding 164 new clients to his list within a year. 
Whether his first client, Mr. Cootes, of Cootes and 
Crosse, a Scotch merchant and sturdy King's man, ever 
forgave him does not appear. After court, Mr. Cootes 
declared that *' he would have given a considerable sum 
out of his own pocket, rather than that his friend Patrick 
should have been guilty of a crime but little, if anything, 
inferior to that which brought Simon, Lord Lovat, to 
the block " ; adding that the culprit " exceeded the most 
seditious and inflammatory harangues of the tribunes 
of old Rome." Much milder was the paternal com- 
ment. We have said that Colonel John Henry refuses 
to palpitate under the hand. His remark to Judge 
Edmund Winston was that Patrick spoke '' in a manner 
that surprised me, and show^ed himself well informed 
on a subject of which I did not know he had any knowl- 

* " It is amusing," says Howison, " to note in Dr. Hawks the 
struggle between his admiration for Henry's genius and his 
evident disgust at his success. He insists much upon the 
demurrer, and expresses the horror of a lawyer at the wide 
field of discussion which Henry assumed." 

7Z 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

edge." Tlic Hanover people at large were more appre- 
ciative of Patrick's rare eloquence. In that county it 
was long customary to say of some orator : '' He is 
almost equal to Patrick Henry when he plead against 
the parsons." His antagonist. Judge Lyons, also appre- 
ciated him, saying: " I could write a letter or draw a 
declaration or plea at the bar with as much accuracy 
as I could in my office, under all circumstances, except 
when Patrick rose to speak; but whenever he rose, 
although it might be on so trifling a subject as a sum- 
mons and petition for twenty shillings, I was obliged 
to lay down my pen, and could not write another word 
until the speech was finished." 

Summing up on the " Parsons' Cause/' we find that 
it gave impetus to popular government and lifted the 
orator of the Revolution out of an obscurity in which 
he might otherwise have remained. The Established 
Church exists in England to this day, but in America 
the very idea is archaic. When we seek to get at the 
mental habitude of the parsons of Henry's time, we 
feel that we are dealing with an age long past. On the 
other hand, when we come to consider Henry's own 
outlook upon man and government, we find it like 
that of the present. His was the onward tendency. 
His light cam.e out of the future. He thought as we 
think ; or, rather, we think as he did, for he was a 
pioneer in fundamental American ideas. It was he who 
in the face of custom broug^ht togrether various new 
elements and vitalized them. As Campbell puts it : 
" Henry's speech in the ' Parsons' Cause,' and the ver- 
dict of the jury, may be said in a certain sense to have 
been the commencement of the Revolution in Virginia ; 
and Hanover, where dissent had appeared, was the 
starting-point." 



74 



V 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE THE STAMP ACT 

Fame was less volatile then than now. There were 
no daily newspapers ; there was infrequent use for the 
word '* million " ; there was no congestion of celebrities. 
If in one sense Patrick Henry's world were smaller 
than ours, in another sense it was larger. People did 
not see in electric glimpses, as we do ; they looked at 
a thing more leisurely, more steadfastly ; they learned 
to measure well ; they remembered for a year what we 
forget in a day. 

By hearsay repute, Henry at twenty-eight was the 
" Orator of Nature " ; but in the main his laurels were 
local to Hanover — not yet fully Virginian. He still 
wore his old coat. He still had his way to make among 
the men who dominated affairs at Williamsburg. These 
chief men of the colony stood on ground apart — the 
superior ground of aristocratic cousinship, wealth, 
knowledge, power, and a long familiarity with the 
methods of London officialdom. They were rural, it is 
true; but some of them were elegantly rural, whereas 
Henry was so rustic as to see no crime in a worn sleeve 
or a misfit wig. 

Perhaps he would not have gone among these men so 
soon after his Hanover triumph if a client had not re- 
quired his services at Williamsburg. In the fall of 
1764 he journeyed thither to represent Captain Nathaniel 
West Dandridge, who was contesting the seat of James 
Littlepage in the House of Burgesses. " Bribery and 
corruption " was the charge against Littlepage, whose 
name serves as an interesting reminder. Those who, 
being in search of romantic characters, have shaken 

75 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

much dust out of old books and old documents will 
recall that a Hanover Littlcpage once supplied the 
novelists with a new sort of American hero. But as 
the hero under present consideration is Patrick himself, 
it is incumbent upon us to go with him to the Capitol 
and see how he fared in the presence of the Com- 
mittee on Privileges and Elections. It is the clear- 
headed and sharp-eyed Judge John Tyler who once more 
speaks for us : 

" The proud airs of aristocracy, added to the dignified forms 
of that truly august body, were enough to have deterred any 
man possessing less firmness and independence of spirit than 
Mr, Henry. He was ushered with great state and ceremony 
into the room of the committee, whose chairman was Colonel 
Bland. Mr. Henry was dressed in very coarse apparel ; no 
one knew anything of him, and scarcely was he treated with 
decent respect by any one except the chairman, who could not 
do so much violence to his feelings and principles as to depart, 
on any occasion, from the delicacy of the gentleman. But the 
general contempt was soon changed into a general admiration, 
for Mr. Henry distinguished himself by a copious and brilliant 
display on the great subject of the rights of suffrage, superior 
to anything that had been heard before within those walls. 
Such a burst of eloquence from a man so very plain and ordi- 
nary in appearance struck the committee with amazement, so 
that a deep and perfect silence took place during the speech, 
and not a sound, but from his lips, was to be heard in the 
room." 

Judge Winston also tells of Henry's rusticity and 
winsomeness of speech: 

" Some time after, a member of the House, speaking to me 
of this occurrence, said he had for a day or two observed an 
ill-dressed young man sauntering in the lobby, that he seemed 
to be a stranger to everybody, and he had not the curiosity to 
inquire his name, but that attending when the case of a con- 
tested election came on, he was surprised to find this same 
person counsel for one of the parties, and still more so when 
he delivered an argument superior to anything he ever heard." 

1(> 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

Such was Henry's introduction to the Capitol. In 
a few months he will have returned as a member from 
Louisa County, so Williamsburg remains the scene for 
us. And as a great drama, with continental involvement, 
was opened there in 1765, it is desirable that the town, 
and the Virginia peninsula midmost of which it stood, 
shall pass under the eye. 

Dr. Lyon Gardiner Tyler speaks of the country be- 
tween James River and the York as ** the cradle of the 
Union." No one need demur at this, nor yet cry "brag ! " 
Some things are really so. The old piney peninsula 
was the scene of the first settlement in English America, 
the first legislative assembly, the first trial by jury, the 
first habeas corpus case, and the first protest against 
tyranny. It was the place whence Americans first pro- 
claimed their fundamental doctrine, " No representation, 
no tax." If John Harvard had permitted, it w^ould 
have had the first college. It grew the first cotton. It 
humanely built the first asylum for the insane. Were 
not the theme somewhat too extrinsic for these pages, 
many another *' first " might be added ; and, indeed, it 
is pertinent as well as important to refer to one more. 
Here also sprang up the first American " rebel " — Na- 
thaniel Bacon, a man with a spirit so like Henry's that 
it is essential to take account of him. Bear in mind 
that Sir William Berkeley, at that time Governor, per- 
mitted the Indians to ravage the border. Bacon, in his 
wrath, beat back the savages, then turned upon the mis- 
governing deputy of a distant King. Here is the 
young rebel's manifesto, issued while at war with the 
passionate old cavalier : 

" If virtue be a sin, if piety be guilt, if all the principles of 
morality and goodness be perverted, we must confess that 
those who are now called ' Rebels ' may be in danger of this 
high imputation; but if there be, as sure there is, a just God 
to appeal to, if to plead the cause of the oppressed, if sincerely 

77 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

to aim at his Majesty's honor and the public good without 
any reservation or by-interest, if to stand in the gap after so 
much blood of our dear brethren bought and sold, if, after the 
loss of a great part of his Majesty's Colony deserted and dis- 
peopled, freely with our lives and estates to endeavor to save 
the remainder — [if this] be treason, God Almighty judge and 
let the guilty die." 

But the rebellion went to pieces ; Bacon died ; and 
Berkeley — then at ** Harop/' or the '' Middle Planta- 
tion," Jamestown being in ashes — revenged himself by 
executing Bacon's friends. '* Mr. Drummond," said 
Berkeley to the chief of these, " you are very welcome. 
I am more glad to see you than any man in Virginia. 
Mr. Drummond, you shall be hanged in half an hour." 
Sure enough, the excellent Drummond was stripped, 
his ring was torn from his finger, and his spirited and 
patriotic wife was speedily made a widow. 

The spot where Drummond died was on the back- 
bone of the peninsula, ninety feet higher than unlucky 
and unhealthy Jamestown. It was an inviting place, 
altogether free from " the Annoyance of Muskettoes." 
From this ridge one creek ran three miles south to the 
James ; another ran four miles north to the York. Soon 
Bruton church was built there ; next, the " Royal Col- 
ledge," designed by Sir Christopher Wren ; then a 
spacious Capitol. Jamestown, in fact, was transplanted 
— it became Williamsburg. 

All who knew Burgess Patrick Henry, and wrote of 
him or passed on down their opinions concerning him, 
agree as to one characteristic — he habitually looked about 
him with sharp eyes. What he saw when he came to the 
capital in May, 1765, was not a city laid out *' in the 
form of a cypher made of W and M " — the initials of 
William and Mary — as had been fancifully proposed, but 
a well-gardened town with one great street, stretching 
along the ridge for nearly a mile. At the extreme west 

' 78 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

end of this avenue was the College ; at the extreme east 
end the Capitol. It was Duke of Gloucester Street, 
ninety feet wide, lined with shade-trees and enlivened 
with the traffic, the social flow, and the political activity 
of a picturesque people. At times a coach with postilions 
and outriders stirred its dust. A Governor was drawn 
from the '' palace " to the Capitol by six milk-white 
horses in gorgeous trappings. There were viceregal 
sights to see at Williamsburg when the Burgesses were 
in session ; and from the palace at this particular period 
came strange tales to be told with zest over the tables 
at the Raleigh Tavern. Governor Francis Fauquier, it 
was said, " gamed furiously " when he made his social 
tour among the rich planters ; '' dice rattled, cards ap- 
peared, money in immense sums was lost and won." 
Just now he was giving musical parties, to which each 
guest brought his violin. Young Thomas Jefferson was 
one of these guests, and so, in course of time, would 
Henry be ; for Patrick had by no means grown grave 
enough to disregard the scrape of the fiddle. 

Yet grave he must have been during the last ten days 
of that memorable month of May. He was on trial 
with himself. It is not true, however, that the people 
had put him forward for the express purpose of tearing 
the Stamp Act to pieces. William Wirt was wrong 
here ; and the painstaking and luminous Flowison fell 
into error when he wrote : " With a special view to 
the debate on the Stamp Act, William Johnson, of 
Louisa, vacated his seat in the House of Burgesses, and 
made way for Patrick Henry, who on the 20th of May 
was placed on the Committee for Courts of Justice." It 
is like taking the poetry out of a fine matter to deny that 
Henry was purposely sent to the House that he might 
discipline King, Lords, and Com^mons ; for how much 
more thrilling history would be if everything happened 
in dramatic sequence, logically and coherently! The 

79 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

simple fact is that Johnson resig-ned to become Coroner. 
No doubt Henry was selected because of his fitness to 
fill the vacancy, and no doubt Grenville's purpose to tax 
America was a sore subject, but the House was in ses- 
sion before any one in Virginia knew of the passage 
of the odious act. 

Henry spent nine days in the House during this ses- 
sion. It is hard to give a just and adequate portraiture 
of his fellow-members. The temptation is to overpraise 
them — to exaggerate their nobility of character. They 
belong among the founders of the nation. There is a 
glamour about them. Can any American who reads 
Hugh Blair Grigsby's eulogy of the members of the 
Convention of 1776 doubt his grasp of fact or accuracy 
of estimate? Yet, for the most part, the same men who 
figure in his memorabilia were seated in the hall of the 
House of Burgesses when Henry entered it for the 
first time. It must be true that there was an exception- 
ally large proportion of high-principled men among 
them. But, here, in this republic, we are accused of 
inability to take the measure of our heroes. Hence one 
may think that Grigsby, in his glow of admiration, found 
giants where only poor human creatures of common 
stature stood. For the satisfaction of those who shy at 
the good Grigsby we shall therefore call upon an 
Englishman of repute to set us straight — A. G. Bradley, 
who says : 

" That the three millions of Anglo-Saxons then in America 
produced at that period a memorable crop of brilliant men, is 
a fact beyond question. This excessive supply was due partly, 
no doubt, to accident, but also in a great measure to the wide 
diffusion of internal responsibility. This again was abnormally 
developed by the great intercontinental questions which agi- 
tated the colonies for many years." 

Next let us note a passage by William Cabell Rives : 

80 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

" If such men were, in a certain sense, an aristocracy, it 
was an aristocracy pledged by its very nature to the general 
good, and constituted, by the advantages of superior fortune 
and education, the vigilant sentinels and faithful guardians of 
the common safety. They were the natural leaders of the 
people in a crisis of public danger." 

All told, the members of the House numbered one 
hundred and sixteen. There were four Lees, three 
Carters, two of the ancient Digges family, two Blands, 
two Boilings, two Carringtons, two Pages, two Paynes, 
two Pendletons, and two. Randolphs. Hardly a family 
of aristocrats but had its member. 

Washington was there — a quiet man, who at once 
made friends with Henry. Much like Washington in 
looks, manners, and public spirit was William Cabell, 
who lived a baronial life on the James. But, though 
big of body, he did not rise in mental stature to the 
height of many another blue-eyed six-footer there pres- 
ent. Perhaps Benjamin Harrison, also a man of bulk, 
lacked somewhat in the intellectual qualities of such 
subtle reasoners as Bland, the constitutionalist; but 
sound sense, and that liveliness of spirit for which his 
family was known, compensated for the want. " I went 
out to Charing Cross to see Major-General Harrison 
hanged, drawn, and quartered," said Pepys, in his 
** Diary " ; '' which was done there, he looking as cheer- 
ful as any man could do in that condition." Tall Paul 
Carrington, whom the Revolutionary struggle made one 
of the gravest, as he was one of the best of men ; Robert 
Carter Nicholas, the leading lawyer of the colony, and the 
quick-tempered Archibald Cary, small of stature, fiery, 
with the handsome looks of his race — even these were 
less distinguished than others who sat below the dais, 
where Speaker John Robinson had been enchaired for 
a quarter of a century. Peyton Randolph we have met ; 
but there remain three celebrities of whom to tell — Lee, 
6 8i 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Pendleton, and Wythe. The chief of " the brilHant Lee 
brotherhood " — Richard Henry — was tall and spare. If 
Cicero's nose were '' Roman," then Lee was like him in 
two respects, for the old Virginians affirm that Richard 
Henry also had Cicero's tongue. Next, Edmund Pen- 
dleton, of whom Jefferson says : 

" Taken all in all, he was the ablest man in debate I ever 
met ; he was cool, smooth, and persuasive ; his language flow- 
ing, chaste, and embellished ; his conceptions quick, acute, and 
full of resource ; add to this that he was one of the most 
virtuous of men, the kindest friend, the most amiable and 
pleasant of companions." 

Are there too many superlatives here? JefTerson was 
by no means quick to praise the men of his time. For 
fifty years Pendleton served his country ; and so did 
the same George Wythe (call it " with ") who had 
bowed our Patrick out when Patrick wanted a lawyer's 
license, and who was now about to discover that appear- 
ances are sometimes deceptive. Wythe was slender, 
with overarching forehead, Roman nose, broad chin, and 
dark gray eyes. His head was largely filled with law, 
and what space law left was enriched with the wisdom 
of the ages. Out of his archaic mouth came quaint locu- 
tions pat to the hour.'^ 

That these men were of clay we all know ; but they 
seem to have been of an uncommonly good grade of it. 
Nothing so humanizes them to our minds as Jefferson's 
account of an incident in the House shortly after Henry 
had taken his seat. It was proposed to borrow £240,000. 
Of this sum i 100,000 was to be used to redeem the paper 

* Wythe was poisoned by a great-nephew who expected to 
come in as heir. Nowadays the Wythe house, facing " Palace 
Green," is " haunted." Wythe returns because he is distrait — 
unconvinced of the regularity of the final proceedings in his 
case. 

82 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

money issued during the French War, and £140,000 was 
to be loaned. Jefferson says : 

" The gentlemen of this country had, at that time, become 
deeply involved in that state of indebtment which has since 
ended in so general a crush of their fortunes. Mr. Robinson, 
the Speaker, was also the Treasurer, an officer always chosen 
by the Assembly. He was an excellent man, liberal, friendly, 
and rich. He had been drawn in to lend, on his own account, 
great sums of money to persons of this description, and es- 
pecially those who were of the Assembly. He used freely for 
this purpose the public money, confiding for its replacement in 
his own means, and the securities he had taken on those 
loans. About this time, however, he became sensible that his 
deficit to the public was become so enormous as that a discovery 
must soon take place, for as yet the public had no suspicion 
of it. He devised, therefore, with his friends in the Assembly, 
a plan for a public loan office, to a certain amount, from which 
money might be lent on public account, and on good landed 
security, to individuals. I find in Royle's Virginia Gazette, of 
May 7, 1765, this proposition for a loan office presented, its 
advantages detailed, and the plan explained. It seems to have 
been done by a borrowing member, from the feeling with 
which the motives are expressed, and to have been preparatory 
to the intended motion. The motion for a loan office was 
accordingly brought forward in the House of Burgesses, and had 
it succeeded, the debts due to Robinson on these loans would 
have been transferred to the public, and his deficit thus com- 
pletely covered. This state of things, however, was not yet 
known ; but Mr. Henry attacked the scheme on other general 
grounds, in that styl^"oT boH, grand, and overwhelming elo- 
quence for which he became so justly celebrated afterwards. I 
had been intimate with him from the year 1759-60, and felt 
an interest in what concerned him ; and I can never forget 
a particular exclamation of his in the debate, which electrified 
his hearers. It had been urged that, from certain unhappy 
circumstances of the colony, men of substantial property had 
contracted debts, which, if exacted suddenly, must ruin them 
and their families, but with a little indulgence of time might 
be paid with ease. ' What, sir,' exclaimed Mr. Henry, in 
animadverting on this, ' is it proposed then to reclaim the 
spendthrift from his dissipation and extravagance by filling his 
pockets with money?' These expressions are indelibly im- 
pressed on my memory. He laid open with so much energy 

83 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

the spirit of favoritism on which the proposition was founded, 
and the abuses to which it would lead, that it was crushed 
in its birth. He carried with him all the members of the 
upper counties, and left a minority composed merely of the 
aristocracy of the country. From this time his popularity 
swelled apace ; and Mr. Robinson dying the year afterward, his 
deficit was brought to light, and discovered the true object 
of the proposition." 



Thus, within three days after his induction into this 
notable body, Henry had made his presence felt. By 
his common-sense, by his instinctive championship of 
the people, and by his power as a speaker, he had won to 
his side many members from the newer counties, and 
had drawn upon himself the admiring, if critical, 
glances of the great " Tuckahoes." But Jefferson is 
in error on one point. It is not a matter of record 
that Henry defeated the loan office plan in the House of 
Burgesses. The measure was carried through that body 
by Robinson's adherents, only to be speedily disapproved 
by the Council. The most important outcome of the 
matter was that it gave Henry all the footing he 
needed for a straightaway advance in a controversy 
which now disturbed the thinking men of the entire 
continent. 

We here come to a story that is dry or dramatic— 
that palls upon us or thrills us — according to the way in 
which we permit ourselves to consider it. Dry, indeed, 
it is if we go at this oft-told Stamp Act story and 
merely rehearse the customary names, dates, and facts, 
without regard to the human element beneath them. 
But if we betake ourselves to England, and look at the 
troubled world awhile through the eyes of the young 
King, the old quarrel becomes new, and all its comedies 
and tragedies take on the human savor. Therefore, let 
us bring forward some of the persons and personages 
of the play — the historical drama of King George III. 

84 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

The argument drops into the present tense, after the 
good old fashion of such abstracts, and runs : 

At CHveden a rain-shower breaks up a cricket-game 
and Frederick, the heir-apparent, is driven indoors. 
Whist would relieve the ennui of his Royal Highness, 
but that some one is needed to make up a rubber. 
At the side of the family doctor, in a gig, sits an un- 
known nobleman. The stranger is asked to take a hand. 
He is tall, charming, a fine talker. His legs, especially, 
are " the theme of general admiration " among the court 
ladies. At once he wins Prince, Princess, and the young 
Prince. He is John Stuart, Earl of Bute — soon to be 
known far and wide as *' the Scotch favorite." When 
Frederick dies, Bute becomes nearer than ever to the 
Princess Dowager — nearer and dearer. The scandal- 
mongers notice it, but the scandalmongers themselves are 
not worthy of notice. Bute reads the manuscript of 
Blackstone to the young Prince, and points out for him 
the beauties of Bolingbroke's *' Patriot King." " George, 
be King ! " says the Princess Dowager ; and Bute echoes, 
" George, be King ! " By and by the old German grand- 
father dies, and George HI. comes to the crown. Sure 
enough, the old days are over. Whiggery is spent and 
done. No more shall ministers rule. In evidence of his 
kingliness, George gives up his sweetheart. He loves 
Lady Sarah Lennox, but sacrifices himself and her, and 
weds Sophia. He means to lead a pure life, a strong 
life. "George, be King!" is not simply a pious motto, 
but expresses now his master-passion. To him a consti- 
tutional monarch is " a monarch in fetters." All hail 
Myself ! 

So far your playwright skims, alert for material out 
of which to construct his drama. Then he pauses long. 
He has come upon an incident that is full of meaning. 
Around it he writes his first scene. It is not where the 
peruke-makers visit the King and beg him, in the name 

8s 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

of bread-and-butter, to wear a wig; it is not where the 
hatters come bowing and scraping, with their hats off — 
these incidents but lend themselves to comedy. It is not 
even a matter connected with the exasperating Wilkes 
case. True, his Majesty wants to be King to the Lon- 
don peruke-makers and hatters, as well as to the bear- 
hunters on the distant Ohio; but the tragedy does not 
begin with perukes and hats and bearskins ; nor yet with 
Wilkes, who is vastly more trouble in jail than out. It 
begins when King George turns his back on William Pitt, 
the competent man, and puts power into the hands of 
Bute, the incompetent. Pitt is " the Great Commoner '■ — 
the organizer of victory. He is of lofty spirit. He is well- 
grounded in the British Constitution. Before the gout 
goes from his feet to his head, he is wise, safe, far- 
sighted — a well-tried, a triumphant, a powerful minister. 
Where on this rolling planet is there an empire-builder 
comparable with Pitt ? Bute is so " slow and pompous " 
in speech that the wags call him " the Parliamentary 
minute-gun." He is " the obstinate minister of an 
obstinate King." But " Lord Bute is my very good 
friend," says his Majesty. It is " the era of the King's 
friends." Pitt's brother-in-law, George Grenville, is 
one of these — also an incompetent. He '' moves in a 
world of formulas and abstractions." He knows figures, 
but not men. Few of the King's friends know human 
nature, indeed. 

Nor have they an imperial horizon. This is shown 
by their myopic view of America. Equable and even 
magnanimous in the treatment of her distant colonies, 
Nineteenth Century England would rarely slip from her 
high plane of imperial conduct ; but Eighteenth Century 
England regards her raw regions over sea with mono- 
polistic eye. She restricts their trade as she pleases, and 
exploits them. She tells them what they may make and 
what not make. She defines their markets. She selects 

86 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

the tallest trees in the free wilderness for royal spars, 
and the colonist must stay his axe. She is begged to 
stop the slave trade, but refuses to do so because the 
crown profits thereby. Of course, the welfare of America 
is a consideration with King and Parliament, but often 
it is a secondary consideration. At bottom the policy is 
commercial. It is selfish. London is the centre of 
things, and London is to be fed with the world's best 
blood. Help the extremities of the empire if possible, 
but feed and enrich England at all events — King, court 
favorites, the commercial lords of the realm. People 
living on the outer edge of the world should not expect 
too much. They have their churches, and so may get 
to heaven — that ought to be enough. 

In living up to the motto, " George, be King," his 
Majesty not only dismisses his sweetheart and his great 
minister, but determines to enforce a certain obsolete 
colonial law. Bute's Lansdowne House has become a 
royal music-hall, and there, while the fiddles play. King 
George and the Scotch earl fill each other's ears with the 
words " America," " Boston," " smuggling," and the 
like. Why make trade laws for the benefit of the British 
West Indies and permit New Englanders to nullify 
them? Were not crown officers in collusion with the 
smugglers? Was there not utter demoralization in that 
quarter ? Humph ! The illicit trade must stop. Since 
the law is a dead-letter, it shall have the royal breath 
breathed into it, and then it will be alive. 

Worse still, the sturdy English people have somehow 
got it into their heads that it is right to tax the Ameri- 
cans. Why not ? Of the one hundred and forty millions 
just added to the debt, sixty millions have been spent 
in driving the French off the American Continent. 
Whigs there are with better instincts in this matter of 
arbitrary taxation. Pitt sees clearly that each colony 
" has its own parliament " ; but the King does not wish 

87 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

it to be so, and will not admit that it is so. " An English- 
man," protests Burke, " is the imfittest person on earth 
to argue another Englishman into slavery/' But the 
King hopes to crush the Whigs, and he forgets what 
even that bad man and bad mionarch, Charles H., was 
pleased to remember and give assurance of : " Taxes 
ought not to be laid on the inhabitants and proprietors 
of the colonies but by the consent of the General As- 
sembly." He forgets Sir Robert Walpole's exclamation 
when advised to do the thing now about to be done : 
"What! I have old England against me; and do you 
think I will have New England likewise? " He fails to 
see that, being rid of the French, the colonists will no 
longer need the British ; and that they have weighed the 
redcoat and found him wanting in forest warfare. 
George HI., indeed, forgets or ignores many facts — 
that the colonists put 25,000 men into the field ; that they 
incurred a war debt of their own of two and a half 
millions ; that they are already stripped to the shirt by 
taxes ; that their trade is onerously fettered by navigation 
laws made in the interest of England ; that the bloody 
Indian menace is constantly upon their border ; that to 
lay them open to any tax at any time by any Parliament 
would be to depreciate all values among them, and turn 
freemen into a subject people. " Zounds ! " says Squire 
Western; "I won't ha' ut. Ain't she my daughter? 
She shall marry 'um ! " '' Zounds ! " says England, 
drowning the voices of such men as Barre and Burke ; 
" ain't she my daughter ? She shall pay 'um ! " 

There is ample popular backing, so the King, who. 
develops " an extraordinary propensity for seeing only 
the wrong side of a case," causes Grenville to devise 
a colonial plan. Grenville's idea is to quarter 20,000 
soldiers in America, and to raise £300,000 a year 
there for their support. Accordingly, he elaborates 
a Stamp Act, with fifty-four sections. The stamps are 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

to vary in value from half a penny to £io, and are to 
be affixed or impressed upon deeds, wills, clearance 
papers, newspapers, almanacs, and the like. Grenville 
talks to his Majesty volubly — tediously. He tries to get 
the King in his power; and the King, for his part, is 
trying to get his kingdom underfoot. The King also 
talks a great deal — so fast that people cannot understand 
him. He certainly is not a great, or even sagacious, man. 
His mind is not as expansive as his now wonderful 
realm. Indeed, in the language of the English historian 
Green, here is a ruler with " a smaller mind than any 
English King before him since James H." But, as the 
grim stage-poet sees, George HI. figures well in scenes 
that make for tragedy. Something frightful haunts 
him. He is often cupped, but cupping does not cure. 
The mixture of hatters and peruke-makers and mad 
hares crying, " George, be King ! " is too much for an 
honest, well-meaning gentleman who has fallen into 
the error of thinking himself more than a man. 

At this point we may quit England and those who had 
to do with the genesis of the taxation storm, and come 
again to Virginia. On the way back, it is fit that we 
should tarry in Boston long enough to bring James Otis 
and the contest of 1761 sharply to mind. Laws that 
interrupt the natural flow of trade are in contempt of 
human reason ; hence they breed lawbreakers. England 
herself then harbored some 40,000 smugglers — Tom 
Paine, imagine it ! being an exciseman ; and New Eng- 
land certainly sheltered great numbers of them. The 
New Englanders sailed a thousand vessels in their 
fisheries and half a thousand in their over-sea trade. 
It suited them to court prosperity by evading navigation 
laws that had become practically obsolete. But 
George III. attempted to enforce these laws. Armed 
with " Writs of Assistance," his officers entered any 
house they pleased — thus brutalizing life and making a 

89 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

mockery of freedom. This it was that gave the eloquent 
Otis his theme when he appeared as the champion of 
the people in the Town Hall, Boston, before a bench of 
bewigged justices in scarlet cloth, and spoke to the text, 
" A man's house is his castle." '' A flaming patriot," 
Governor Hutchinson called him. " Then and there," 
said John Adams, " the child Independence was born." 
In a word, Otis was to the Northern colonies what 
Patrick Henry was to the Southern ; but, as Wells, in 
his " Life of Samuel Adams," reminds us, '' the argu- 
ment of Otis was not the prologue of the great drama, 
for it did not then begin. The American Revolution was 
caused by, and opened with, the revenue acts. The direct 
issue was the raising of a revenue from the colonies 
without their consent, and without their being repre- 
sented in Parliament." 

When news reached America that the Grenville Stamp 
Act was indeed a law, and would go into effect on All 
Saints' Day, November i, 1765, the various colonies pre- 
pared to execute it. Even Otis said : " It is the duty of 
all humbly and silently to acquiesce in all the decisions 
of the supreme legislature." In not one of the colonies 
was there a definite purpose to resist the imposition of 
the tax. The tone throughout was that of remonstrance. 
Despondency was everywhere. 

There were many remonstrants, even supplicants, in 
the Old Dominion. In recounting the colonial glories of 
the Williamsburg Peninsula, enough was said to indicate 
that Virginia had long sought to incorporate in its polity 
the spirit and guarantees of manhood's rights. There 
was in the colony a powerful body of opinion, and its 
spokesmen were such conservatives as Richard Bland, 
Peyton Randolph, Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, 
and Richard Henry Lee. But they were so habituated 
to acquiescence in matters affecting loyalty that it did 
not occur to them to do other than curb their tongues, 

90 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

talk in whispers when criticising his Majesty, and write 
guardedly when sending their protests to the London 
government. In fact, Richard Henry Lee was willing 
to take office under the Stamp law. A committee 
of the House of Burgesses had forwarded an address 
" to the King's most excellent Majesty," a memorial 
" to the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and 
Temporal," and a remonstrance to the House of Com- 
mons. The tone of the first two was suppliant — dutiful, 
conciliatory ; but the remonstrance to the Commons had 
a high spirit of manliness. It was written by Wythe ; 
and we find a measure of how matters stood prior to 
Henry's appearance upon the scene, in the fact that 
Wythe's conscience troubled him lest he had written 
some passage that might be construed as treasonable. 
He did not mean to draw down upon himself the appli- 
cation of such a horrid word. Among the great 
" Tuckahoes " there was much indignation against King 
and Parliament ; but every man of high influence shrank 
from the odium that seemed sure to follow the cry 
" Resist ! " 

It was Henry who spoke the word — who raised the 
cry. 

The " Old Capitol," where he made his Stamp Act 
speech, is gone. The visitor to the spot sees an open 
square at the town's end. Round about are old-fashioned 
buildings shaded by sycamores, " honeyshuck " trees, 
and beautiful crape-myrtles. In the centre of the square 
the foundation walls are traced in masonry. The effect is 
as if a huge " H " had been marked out upon the grass, 
which one knows to be sheep-mint because of the balmy 
smell in the air when it is bruised with the foot. The bar 
of the " H " stands for a broad passage that connected 
the main parts of the two-story brick edifice. The hall 
of the House of Burgesses was on the ground floor in 
the western half, and the Council Chamber was above. 

91 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

An old print pictures for us a front with many windows 
and a tall portico.''' Such was the *' Heart of the Revo- 
lution " in Virginia. 

Henry might well be imagined as standing with his 
half-brother, Burgess John Syme, among the '* Qo'hees " 
at this porticoed entrance on the morning of the 29th 
of May — his 29th birthday. Let us remember that there 
were two grand divisions of men in Virginia — our aris- 
tocratic friends, the " Tuckahoes," from the thirty-five 
counties on tidewater, and the " Qo'hees," in buck- 
skin breeches, from the twenty-one upper counties. f But 
locally, in Stamp Act times, there was another way of 
distinguishing the parties : the King's people were called 
'* Old Field Nags," and those of whom Henry was about 
to take the lead were known as " High-blooded Colts." 
In the main, these latter were young men — brave bor- 



* " In shape," says John Esten Cooke, " the Old Capitol re- 
sembled an * H ' — a covered gallery 30 feet in length, sur- 
mounted by a cupola and clock, connecting the two wings. 
The fronts on each side were approached through lofty porti- 
coes, with iron balconies above; and double doors, each six 
feet wide, gave access to the hall and the corresponding room 
on the other side, which was that of the General Court. 
The hall was 50 feet long and 25 feet wide, with a floor of 
flagstones." The building was burned in April, 1832. 

t Edward W. James, of Norfolk, whose antiquarian studies 
have led him to examine many inventories, warns the writer 
of this book against the fallacy that the Virginians were 
divided into " the very rich and very poor." Most of them were 
neither the one nor the other. In like manner. Dr. Lyon G. 
Tyler warns him against the pitfall of a magnified colonial 
aristocracy. He says : " The democratic spirit was progressive, 
and long antecedent to the American Revolution. . . . Pat- 
rick Henry would never have written his resolutions on the 
Stamp Act, nor Mason his celebrated Bill of Rights, unless 
they had been bred among a people accustomed to liberty. 
. . . Dinwiddle and Spotswood fully admitted, years before, 
the free spirit of the Virginians." 

92 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

derers — poor, pushing, and perhaps impatient of the par- 
liamentary restraints put upon them by custom ; for, as 
Rives remarks, *' the House of Burgesses was organized 
with a scrupulous observance of all the stereotyped regal 
formalities." One of the " Qo'hees," having uttered an 
oath in debate, was made to stand while the Speaker 
reprimanded him in due form and with impressive 
solemnity ; and, as it is further related, at the end of the 
proceeding the culprit set up a devil-may-care whistle, 
whereat the whole House laughed. King George may 
have been sovereign lord and master among the peruke- 
makers of London, but he was not so regarded by the 
free-footed " buckskins " who knew the color of the 
mountains, and who yearned to cross them, passing 
West. 

Since the session was drawing to a close, many 
members had left town ; therefore the House was slim. 
Governor Fauquier says that but thirty-nine were 
present. We may, if we please, enter the hall, preempt 
a vacant seat, and use our eyes and ears. We shall see 
that Speaker Robinson, still hiding his private ruin under 
public show, sat in dignity upon a dais. A gilded rod 
upheld a red canopy above him. In front and below 
was a table, by which sat the clerk, and upon which 
rested a silver mace. Some of the Burgesses were in 
velvet dress, with ruffles and powdered hair, others in 
rough cloth and buckskin. 

And now for action. Henry's helper, George Johnston, 
of Fairfax — lawyer, scholar, man of character, and 
champion of liberty — took the floor. He moved that the 
House go into Committee of the Whole to consider the 
Stamp Act. Henry seconded the motion, which was 
carried ; the clerk put the mace under the table ; Robin- 
son gave way as presiding officer to Attorney-General 
Peyton Randolph ; and the Burgesses were in Commit- 
tee of the Whole. Thereupon Henry introduced a 

93 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

series of resolutions — some say six, some say seven — 
which he had written on the blank leaf of an old copy 
of *' Coke upon Littleton." Thanks to Henry himself, 
we are certain as to the exact wording of the first five, 
which, with their preamble, ran as follows : 



" Whereas, The honorable House of Commons in England 
have of late drawn into question how far the General Assembly 
of this Colony hath power to enact laws for laying of taxes 
and imposing duties, payable by the people of this his Majesty's 
most ancient colony : for settling and ascertaining the same 
to all future times, the House of Burgesses of this present 
General Assembly have come to the following resolves : 

" Resolved, That the first adventurers and settlers of this 
his Majesty's colony and dominion brought with them, and 
transmitted to their posterity, and all other his Majesty's sub- 
jects since inhabiting in this his Majesty's said colony, all the 
privileges, franchises, and immunities that have at any time 
been held, enjoyed, and possessed by the people of Great 
Britain. 

" Resolved, That by two royal charters, granted by King 
James the First, the colonists aforesaid are declared entitled 
to all the privileges, liberties, and immunities of denizens and 
natural-born subjects, to all intents and purposes as if they 
had been abiding and born within the realm of England. 

" Resolved, That the taxation of the people by themselves, 
or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who 
can only know what taxes the people are able to bear, and the 
easiest mode of raising them, and are equally affected by 
such taxes themselves, is the distinguishing characteristick of 
British freedom, and without which the ancient Constitution 
cannot exist. 

'^Resolved, That his Majesty's liege people of this most 
ancient colony have uninterruptedly enjoyed the right of 
being thus governed by their own Assembly in the article of 
their taxes and internal police, and that the same hath never 
been forfeited or any other way given up, but hath been con- 
stantly recognized by the Kings and people of Great Britain. 

" Resolved, therefore. That the General Assembly of this 
colony have the only and sole exclusive right and power to 
lay taxes and impositions upon the inhabitants of this colony, 
and that every attempt to vest such power in any person or 

94 




HENRY IN THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES 



(P. H. Rothermel's idealization of the scene when the orator provoked protesting 
cries of " Treason ! Treason ! ") 



II 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

persons whatsoever, other than the General Assembly aforesaid, 
has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as Ameri- 
can freedom." 

At once the Burgesses became open-eyed; then ani- 
mated ; then excited. Phrased in language peculiar to 
such documents of state, the resolutions nevertheless 
were essentially freighted with patriotic meaning. Here 
was something strong — something dangerous, indeed, 
something that might attaint. Here, practically, was 
defiance of a great power. 

Soon the air was so surcharged as to possess that 
galvanic quality which sets the blood going and quickens 
all the senses. Cautious tongues lost their bridle. There 
was plain speaking — there was no lack of vehemence. 
Quick to grasp the grave purport of the matter thus 
throw^n into the proceedings of a body they were accus- 
tomed to control, the older Burgesses drew together 
in opposition ; the more daring members supported and 
applauded the newly risen leader. But though George 
Johnston, of Fairfax, Robert Mimford, of Mecklenburg, 
and John Fleming, of Cumberland, spoke in favor of the 
resolutions, Henry was the mainstay in their defence and 
the driving power in their advocacy. Men like Wythe 
and Peyton Randolph '' saw at once," says Howison, 
*' the broad line between their feeble memorials and these 
nervous and manly protests. They felt that the last 
resolution, in particular, arraigned the English legis- 
lature, King, Lords, and Commons, before them, and 
boldly charged them with despotism and tyranny. But 
Henry was equal to the task he had assumed. Now at 
length he had a them.e worthy of himself — not confined 
by technical rules or provincial limits, but broad as the 
British empire, affecting the rights of mankind, and 
appealing at once to the highest powers of the intellect 
and the warmest feelings of the heart. He rejoiced in 
his subject, and, grasping it like a giant, he expanded 

95 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

it before his astonished hearers, until its subHmity began 
to force itself upon them. His words were pregnant 
with a nation's freedom." 

Thus far it is safe to follow Howison ; but when he 
begins to skeletonize Henry's argument, he cites Burk, 
whose account has been questioned. Wirt frankly 
admits his inability to reconstruct the argument. So 
Howison's further summary can be regarded only as an 
echo of tradition. But here it is : 

" He [Henry] reasoned upon the chartered rights of the 
colony ; he unfolded the written grants of English monarchs, 
even in an age of servitude, and showed the clauses guaranteeing 
the privileges of America. He explored the depths of the Brit- 
ish Constitution, and, by long-established precedents, proved the 
connection between taxes and the free consent of the people; 
then, leaving charters and human conventions, he entered upon 
an inquiry into the natural rights of man, and announced doc- 
trines then almost unheard, but which have since become the 
basis of our government." * 

There is no question as to the very words used in 
Henry's flaming climax. " I attended the debate at the 
door of the lobby of the House of Burgesses," writes 
Thomas Jefferson, in his " Autobiography " — he was 
still a student — " and heard the splendid display of Mr. 
Henry's talents as a popular orator. They were great 
indeed ; such as I have never heard from any other man. 
He appeared to me to speak as Homer wrote." Again, 
in his letter to Wirt, Jefferson says : 

* John Burk, " an ardent, sanguine, and bold genius," puts 
two eloquent passages into Henry's mouth on this theme of 
rights " derived from the God of nature," but where he got 
them, if not out of his own excellent imagination, no one knows. 
Nevertheless, it should be remembered that Burk probably 
talked with men who had heard Henry make this great Stamp 
Act speech. Burk, killed in a duel, had no opportunity to sub- 
stantiate his assertions. 

96 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

" Mr. Henry moved and Mr. Johnston seconded these resolu- 
tions successively. They were opposed by Messrs. Randolph, 
Bland, Pendleton, Wythe, and all the old members, whose influ- 
ence in the House had, till then, been unbroken. They did it, 
not from any question of our rights, but on the ground that 
the same sentiments had been, at their preceding session, ex- 
pressed in a more conciliatory form, to which the answers were 
not yet received. But torrents of sublime eloquence from 
Henry, backed by the solid reasoning of Johnston, prevailed. 
The last, however, and strongest resolution was carried by but 
a single vote. The debate on it was most bloody." 

How much of the battle took place on the 29th and 
how much on the 30th is unknown. The written journal 
is missing. The printed journal says that when, on the 
29th, the Committee reported the resolutions, it was 
ordered that the report be received on the morrow. On 
the 30th, the five resolutions were thrice read in the 
House, and the fierce contest was resumed. 

■Now, such is our familiarity with Henry's telling 
passages while speaking on the fifth resolution, that at 
this day they fail to stir us as they stirred young Jeffer- 
son and stirred all who heard them in the heat and glory 
of that '' most bloody " debate. Just as parody has 
strumpeted the beauty of many Shakespearean figures, 
so the mouth of boy and man has practised upon these 
passages until it is difficult to make them seem other than 
a commonplace of elocution. Yet Judge Paul Carring- 
ton declares that Henry's eloquence was " beyond all 
power of description " ; and others present testify that 
the outburst came as a fit and glorious climax to the 
long forensic struggle that gave the Revolution its initial 
imptilse. In a voice and with a manner that startled 
those even who were aware of his virile nature and 
masterful tongue, Henry said : 

" Tarquin and Caesar had each his Brutus, Charles 
the First his Cromwell, and George the Third — " He. 
paused. 

7 97 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

*' Treason ! " came in a shout from the Speaker, high 
on his dais. " Treason ! Treason ! " cried many Bur- 
gesses. 

Then, in no haste, but with impressive access of 
dignity — growing visibly taller, until he seemed the very 
embodiment of resolute manhood — he spoke his final 
words : 

" may profit by their example ! If this be treason, 

make the most of it." 

It was, indeed, " a warning flash from history." 
Neither young Jefferson nor young John Tyler, who 
stood side by side in the lobby, needed to put upon paper, 
for memory's sake, such words as these. Tyler's mental 
picture of the scene long remained most vivid. Jefferson 
stood at the door of communication between the House 
and the lobby during the whole debate and vote, which 
was twenty-two for and seventeen against the resolu- 
tions. The vote on the fifth resolution was twenty to 
nineteen. Jefferson says : 

" I well remember that, after the members on the division 
were told and declared from the chair, Peyton Randolph (the 
Attorney-General) came out at the door where I was standing, 
and said, as he entered the lobby : ' By God, I would have given 
500 guineas for a single vote ; ' for one would have divided the 
House, and Robinson was in the chair, who he knew would have 
negatived the resolution. Mr. Henry left town that evening, 
and the next morning, before the meeting of the House, Colonel 
Peter Randolph, then of the Council, came to the Hall of the 
Burgesses, and sat at the clerk's table till the House-bell rang, 
thumbing over the volumes of journals to find a precedent for 
expunging a vote of the House, which he said had taken place 
while he was a member or clerk of the House, I do not recollect 
which. I stood by him at the end of the table a considerable 
part of the time, looking on, as he turned over the leaves, but 
I do not recollect whether he found the erasure. In the mean- 
time, some of the timid members, who had voted for the 
strongest resolution, had become alarmed, and as soon as the 
House met, a motion was made and carried to expunge it from 

s\ iournal." 

98 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

This was the fifth resolution, which had been carried 
by a vote that could not have been bought for five 
hundred guineas or any other sum. It was the vote of 
Thomas Lewis. There was many a romance wrapped 
up in the lives of the men on the floor of the House 
of Burgesses, but no family tale would better fit into a 
novel than that of the immigrant Lewis, father of 
Thomas, who with his own hand slew a hectoring Irish 
lord, and, fleeing hither, brought up his sons to be brave 
Virginia borderers. 

Doubtless Governor Fauquier would not have been 
relieved of the humiliating necessity of forwarding this 
fifth resolution to the Lords of Trade if Henry had re- 
mained in Williamsburg a day longer. But in Grigsby 
we have a glimpse of him, immediately after his victory, 
" passing along the street, on his way to his home in 
Louisa, clad in a pair of leather breeches, his saddle- 
bags on his arm, leading a lean horse, and chatting with 
Paul Carrington, who walked by his side." "^ 

Mention has been made of Henry's habitual disregard 
of memoranda concerning himself. But on this occasion, 
being actuated by the wish to appear in a true light be- 
fore his countrymen, he was at pains to preserve the 

* P. F. T^othermel's painting, " Patrick Henry in the House of 
Burgesses, Delivering his Celebrated Speech Against the Stamp 
Act," took the thousand-dollar prize offered in 1852 by the Art 
Union of Philadelphia. It did not escape criticism. The Vir- 
ginia Historical Register said : " In the first place, the principal 
figure, Patrick Henry himself, is glaringly unlike the original, 
or at least differs greatly from Sully's portrait of it . . . which 
we take to be altogether authentic. It violates, also, all our 
settled notions of the orator's appearance and costume; and 
instead of a plain and unpretending man ... we have a well 
dressed actor ... in his fine scarlet cloak; and, then, instead 
of that famous old-fashioned wig which he actually wore at the 
time, and perhaps twisted awry, we have here those ' ambrosial 
curls,' fashionably powdered, and adjusted with nice care and 
easy grace about the brow." 

99 • " 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

resolutions as adopted by the House. With his will was 
found a sealed letter, thus endorsed : '' Inclosed are the 
resolutions of the Virginia Assembly, in 1765, concern- 
ing the Stamp Act. Let my executors open this paper." 
On the back of the paper containing the resolutions 
(already presented) was the following statement: 

" The within resolutions passed the House of Burgesses in 
May, 1765. They formed the first opposition to the Stamp Act 
and the scheme of taxing America by the British Parliament. 
All the colonies, either through fear, or from influence of some 
kind or other, had remained silent. I had been for the first 
time elected a Burgess a few days before, was young, inex- 
perienced, unacquainted with the forms of the House and the 
members that composed it. Findinpr the men of weight averse 
to opposition, and the commencement of the tax at hand, and 
that no person was likely to step forth, I determined to venture, 
and alone, unadvised, and unassisted, on a blank leaf of an old 
law-book, wrote the within. Upon offering them to the House, 
violent debates ensued. Many threats were uttered, and much 
abuse cast on me by the party for submission. After a long 
and warm contest the resolutions passed by a very small major- 
ity, perhaps of one or tv/o only. The alarm spread throughout 
America with astonishing quickness, and the Ministerial party 
were overwhelmed. The great point of resistance to British tax- 
ation was universally established in the colonies. This brought 
on the war which finally separated the countries and gave inde- 
pendence to ours. Whether this will prove a blessing or a 
curse, will depend upon the use our people make of the bless- 
ings which a gracious God hath bestowed upon us. If they be 
wise, they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary 
character, they will be miserable. Righteousness alone can exalt 
them as a nation. Reader ! whoever thou art, remember this, 
and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself, and encourage it in 
others. — P. Henry." 

Having hewn his five pieces of timber, Henry, like a 
good wood-chopper, did not bother about the chips. 
There is no reference in his memorandum either to a 
missing preamble or to rejected resolutions. Those, 
however, who faithfully follow the work of men of action 

100 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

must take note even of chips, in a contest of such historic 
significance. Accordingly, Edmund Randolph, in his 
manuscript '' History of Virginia," Gordon, in his " His- 
tory of the American Revolution," Marshall — his father 
was present as a Burgess — in his " Life of Washington," 
Richard Frothingham, in his " Rise of the Republic," 
and other writers, dwell upon the fact that two resolu- 
tions were lost in the House, though by no means lost 
upon the country. There is a reference to them in 
Fauquier's letter to the Lords of Trade, in which the 
Governor explains why he was under the necessity of 
dissolving the House on June i . Says he : 

" I am informed the gentlemen had two more resolutions in 
their pocket, but, finding the difficulty they had in carrying the 
fifth, which was by a single voice, and knowing them to be more 
virulent and inflammatory, they did not produce them." 

Aloses Coit Tyler thinks that these resolutions should 
he numbered *'six " and " seven." They are as follows : 

''Resolved, That his Majesty's liege people, the inhabitants of 
this colony, are not bound to yield obedience to any law or 
ordinance whatever, designed to impose any taxation whatso- 
ever upon them, other than the laws or ordinances of the Gen- 
eral Assembly aforesaid. 

" Resolved, That any person who shall, by speaking or writ- 
ing, assert or maintain that any person or persons, other than 
the General Assembly of this colony, have any right or power to 
impose or lay any taxation on the people here, shall be deemed 
an enemy of his Majesty's colony." 

In a letter to the Bishop of London, Speaker Robin- 
son's cousin, the Rev. William Robinson. Commissary 
for Virginia, thus pointedly alludes to the fact that 
Henry had a hand in the seventh resolution : 

" The concluding resolve which he [Henry] offered to the 
House, and which fell among the rejected ones, was that any 
person who should write or speak in favor of the Act of Parlia- 

lOI 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

ment for laying stamp duties, should be deemed an enemy to the 
colony of Virginia ; such notions has he of liberty and property 
as well as of authority." 

" He blazed out in a violent speech," says the dis- 
pleased Commissary ; " he is spreading treason." 

In summing- up with respect to the rejected resolu- 
tions, Dr. Tyler says that Henry probably introduced 
the preamble and the whole seven resolutions ; that the 
preamble was struck out ; that the sixth and seventh 
resolutions were lost in committee, and that the copy 
sent North was made prior to the final action. Evi- 
dence of haste in copying for post is found in the fact 
that the third resolution was omitted bodily. 

Accurate or inaccurate, sanctioned or spurious, the 
unmodified resolves were quick to circulate — North, 
South, and everywhere. They were accepted as the 
voice of the most powerful colony. Philadelphia passed 
them along to New York, where, as Gordon says, '' they 
v/ere handed about with great privacy," being accounted 
treasonable. But in New England '' the newspapers 
printed them far and wide, without any reserve." " They 
gave a spring to all the discontented." " The people of 
Virginia have spoken very sensibly," declared the Boston 
Gacette, " and the frozen politicians of a more northern 
government say they have spoken treason." Otis was 
of the opinion that Henry had gone too far; but in a 
little while he became responsive to the fierce spirit now 
enkindled, and moved forward with zeal. One feature 
of the new situation surprised and gratified the people 
of Massachusetts. A hoary bugaboo in some parts was 
that England might seek to Anglicize their church. But 
here, now, in the American stronghold of episcopacy, 
was clear evidence of antagonism to the King ; and as 
for Patrick Henry, was it not he who, with tongue of 
wrath, had driven forth the clergy at Hanover? 
" Ab'iit, c.vccssif, ci'asit, crnpif!" The Virginians were 

102 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

applauded. '' Oh, they are men ! " said the old patriot, 
Oxenbridge Thacher, speaking from his deathbed ; '* they 
are noble spirits ! " " This is the way the fire began," 
observes Bancroft ; '' Virginia rang the alarm-bell for 
the continent." 

Summer was just opening, and six months remained 
before the Stamp Act would go into effect. Hence 
there was time to organize resistance. Not even Henry's 
words were more frequently in the mouths of the people 
than was a certain glowing and highly oratorical passage 
from the speech of Barre, who had served in America 
with Wolfe, and who now sat as a Whig in the House 
of Commons : '" They planted by your care ! No ; your 
oppression planted them in America. Nourished by your 
indulgence ! They grew up by your neglect of them. 
They protected by your arms ! Those sons of liberty 
have nobly taken up arms in your defence." " Sons of 
liberty " — a happy phrase minted in rare purity of 
flame — was caught up by the men now banded together 
in all parts of the continent. Secret at first, these clubs 
in time came out from under cover. They were no 
mere juntos. They developed into open societies for the 
propagation of the doctrine of colonial rights and the 
idea of continental unity. Patriotic letters, fraternal 
greetings, and solemn pledges passed between them. 
Women joined in the agitation. Their plan was for 
passive resistance ; '' Frugality and Industry " their 
motto. They meant to ignore England. They them- 
selves would supply the necessities of their own house- 
holds. To quote Frothingham : *' The Virginia resolves, 
as circulated in the press, declaring no obedience to the 
Stamp Act, strengthened the purpose of these associ- 
ations. Their organization from the first meant business 
of a most determined character. It was Cromwellian in 
its aims, going straight to the mark of forcible resist- 
ance." 

103 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Barely a fortnight after the adoption of the resolu- 
tions, Fauquier wrote to the Ministry : " Government is 
set at defiance. . . . The private distress which 
every man feels increases the general dissatisfaction at 
the duties laid by the Stamp Act, which breaks out and 
shows itself upon every trifling occasion." Even Par- 
son Maury admired Henry's " doctrine of liberty." The 
taxation threat, he wrote to a friend in London, " struck 
us with the most universal consternation that ever seized 
a people so widely diffused." Every province in America 
was resisting. " For this," added the good man, " some 
may brand us with the odious name of rebels, and others 
may applaud us for that generous love of liberty which 
we inherit from our forefathers." 

With a fixed and critical date — a turning-point — on 
ahead, the people moved towards it with increasing per- 
turbation. As in a great election contest, the nearer 
the approach to the decisive day, the more intense was 
the feeling. Thus the situation grew angrier month by 
month, and in August there were riotous demonstrations 
against the distributers of stamps. Colden, Lieutenant- 
Governor in New York, set his face against the agitators. 
They seized his chariot, placed effigies of himself and the 
devil side by side in the vehicle, dragged it through the 
streets, and at last burned it vengefully and with acclaim. 
Newspapers grew violent, and Bradford's Pennsylvania 
Journal came out with skulls and cross-bones pictured 
upon its title-piece, and announced in bold-face type, 
" The Times are Dreadful, Dismal, Doleful, Dolorous, 
and Dollar-less." 

But New England took the lead. It was Massachusetts 
that gave signs of true revolutionary heat. Boston was 
the seat of protest and the centre of recusancy. Then 
it was that Faneuil Hall took on the attributes of a 
patriotic shrine. On the 14th of August a mob burned 
an effigy of Andrew Oliver, a stamp distributer, raising 

104 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

the cry, " Liberty, Property, and No Stamps ! " Fear- 
ing fire for himself, OUver resigned. All other dis- 
tributers the country over likewise gave up their offices. 
But the ferment grew apace. On the 21st of August 
rioters sacked the house of Chief-Justice Hutchinson. 
Wherever boxes of stamps could be traced, they were 
seized and destroyed. All told, there were fourteen 
popular risings in as many cities and towns. 

Meantime, there was no lack of effort to coordinate 
the forces of revolt. " One single Act of Parliament," 
says Otis, " had set people a-thinking in six months 
more than they had ever done in their whole lives be- 
fore." Otis did not believe in rioting so much as in 
legitimate agitation. He was among those who felt that 
some of the current disorders and intimidations were a 
reproach upon a Christian land. Tumult may be merely 
senseless. He was wise enough to see that rowdies 
could never break down a bad government, much less 
set up a good one. Effigy-burning had in it the elements 
of boys' play. He was a man of moods, and at times 
the hurrah over the smashing of window-glass must have 
made him feel the pettiness of a brick-bat protest, and 
the pity of it. Again, in another mood, the glory of the 
new world, its hope, its promise, its God-given immen- 
sities, came to him as in a vision, and his patriotic fervor 
w^as intense. Being imaginative, he foresaw, as Henr}^ 
did, though in certain processes of speculative reasoning 
they were not at all alike. 

While the news of Henry's resistance speech was on 
the way up from Virginia, Otis was planning a Stamp 
Act Congress. The idea of such a general assembly 
of conferees was familiar. New England had tried the 
plan locally ; Franklin had caused it to be tried in the 
Albany Congress when the times, though demanding 
cooperative effort, were unripe for union. Even now 
there was disbelief in its legality and utility, and the 

105 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

King's men opposed it as a mischief and a menace. 
Altogether lukewarm had been the first reception of the 
Otis proposal; in truth, the project languished until 
Henry rang what Governor Bernard of Massachusetts 
called " an alarm-bell to the disaffected. " After that 
the plan was executed. Nine colonies sent delegates — 
the politic Bernard being at pains to associate two 
Government men with Otis, while Fauquier, in Virginia, 
smothered representation from that quarter. 

But there were some staunch and able Whigs in the 
company that met in the City Hall, New York, on the 
7th of October — Gadsden, Lynch, Rutledge, Dickinson, 
the Livingstons, and others. Frothingham declares that 
New York then " abounded with the bitterness, strife, 
and all the elements of a political paroxysm." The Sons 
of Liberty were numerous, active, and bold. They had 
a new cry, " A Continental Union ! " General Gage's 
headquarters were there. With the powers of a viceroy, 
he winked at various happenings and took cognizance 
of others. There were ships of war in the harbor, and 
within the city itself was a fort mounted with cannon. 

Otis was the chief speaker in the Congress ; and, 
next to him, Gadsden stands out as its most sterling 
figure. It was as if Gadsden, traversing Virginia on 
the way North, had caught some of Henry's spirit. He 
opposed the plan of sending further petitions to Parlia- 
ment, and assailed the proposition that the people should 
base their liberties upon royal charters. " We should 
stand," said he, " upon the broad common ground of 
those natural rights that we all feel and know as men and 
as descendants of Englishmen. I wish the charters may 
not ensnare us at last, by drawing different colonies to 
act differently in this great cause. Whenever that is the 
case, all will be over with the whole. There ought to 
be no New England man, no New Yorker, known on 
the continent, but all of us Americans." 

106 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

What would have happened if Henry had been there 
to storm and stampede the house is matter for interest- 
ing, if idle, speculation ; but Gadsden was unable to 
force his views upon a body still somewhat subservient, 
and chilled to caution by the presence of men wedded 
to the party of prerogative. Eleven days the debate 
lasted. Then there was a declaration of rights and 
grievances. Fourteen resolutions were adopted. With 
" all due subordination to that august body, the Parlia- 
ment," its recent acts were arraigned as having " a 
manifest tendency to subvert the rights and liberties 
of the people." The privilege of self-taxation and the 
right of trial by jury were asserted. It is doubtful 
whether Henry, if a delegate, could have heard the 
sentiment, '' We glory in being subjects of the best of 
Kings," without getting upon his feet and flashing forth 
a protest that would have scorched out the adulatory 
passage and robbed his Majesty of an insincere compli- 
ment. As it was, the happenings outside the hall were 
more in keeping with the tumultuous spirit abroad than 
those within. The Tory chairman challenged an ex- 
asperating Whig member to a duel, only to have his 
valor ooze ovit, " Bob Acres " fashion, overnight. A 
delegate, too, was hanged — in effigy ; and that was the 
end of a convention chiefly memorable as the forerunner 
of the Continental Congress of 1774. 

Meanwhile, Henry's resolves were serving as the pat- 
tern for similar resolutions in various assemblies. Eight 
colonies adopted such resolutions, and in some instances 
the wording was identical with that of the Virginia 
series. 

Long before the first of November, it was evident that 
only by sending great numbers of troops to America 
could the Government of Great Britain enforce the 
Stamp Act. Commerce was suffering; London traders 
who dealt with America were apprehensive. Pitt left his 

107 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

bed to speak for repeal, and that winter the law was 
withdrawn. King George signed the repeal on the i8th 
of March, 1766. In his capital " bow-bells were set 
a-ringing, the ships in the Thames displayed their colors, 
and London streets were illuminated." But if there 
was so much rejoicing in England, how great must have 
been the jubilation in America ! The long tumult was 
over — the victory won, the principle established. So 
must have thought the thousands who welcomed the glad 
tidings ; but they were premature in their acclaim, and 
especially in their praise of the King. His Majesty was 
a most stubborn and persistent man. To the repeal of 
the Stamp Act his Ministry had affixed a Declaratory 
Act. It pleased the Tory Britons then in power to 
assert that it was one of the rights of Parliament to 
tax America " in all cases whatsoever." 

To those who think we have dwelt too long upon 
events connected with Plenry's stand on the Stamp Act. 
an apology is made ; and to those who feel that they 
have been inadequately sketched, we doubly apologize. 
They were the direct consequences of his resolves and 
fiery contention in the House of Burgesses. Jefferson 
said, " Mr. Henry certainly gave the first impulse to the 
ball of the Revolution ; " and Lord Brougham, in his 
" Political Philosophy," speaks of this same Revolution 
as " the most important event in the history of our 
species." We may, if we like, interpolate '' one of the 
most important events," and tone down the eloquent 
lord's superlative phraseology ; but the glory of a great 
fact will still remain. Like Jefferson, Edmund Randolph 
got to be at odds with Henry, yet Randolph wrote : " On 
May 29, 1765, Mr. Henry plucked the veil from the 
shrine of parliamentary omnipotence." Grigsby declares 
that the passage of Henry's resolves was " the first great 
blow which British supremacy received on this side 
of the Atlantic." It was " the first great act of the 

108 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

drama of the Revolution." Henry's words, concludes 
Woodrow Wilson, " were the first words of a revolution, 
and no man ever thought just the same after he had 
read them." 

Washington, writing of the Stamp Act, thus expressed 
himself : '' Had the Parliament of Great Britain resolved 
upon enforcing it, the consequences, I conceive, would 
have been more direful than is generally apprehended, 
both to the mother country and to her colonies." 

Had the King and Parliament sent over some tens 
of thousands of troops fresh from Pitt's great school of 
war, and had those troops, as incidents of a quick cam- 
paign, seized upon Otis of Massachusetts and Henry of 
A^irginia, what would have happened to the two men? It 
is doubtful whether Otis would have been hanged. In 
the Stamp Act agitation he was more guarded than 
Henry. His approach to the desired end was slower. 
" A redress of grievances, not a revolution of govern- 
ment, v/as my wish," said Edmund Pendleton ; and this 
expresses the attitude of Otis in the Stamp Act Congress. 
" The orator of Virginia," thinks W^illiam Wirt Henry, 
" went a bow-shot beyond the orator of Massachusetts." 

But there shall be no nice balancing here as to 
whether Otis or Henry should hold priority as the 
pioneer of the Revolution. There is a controversy about 
it, and the controversialists will continue to split hairs 
for a long time to come. They are like Judge Dooly, of 
Georgia, who, having challenged his political opponent, 
Judge Tait, to fight a duel, was distressed when he 
reached the ground to discover that Tait had a wooden 
leg. It was not sympathy with Tait that caused the 
distress ; for Dooly insisted that one of his own legs 
should be cased in a hollow tree to offset the other's 
advantage. 

No one can add to Henry's fame by belittling Otis ; 
and, conversely, no one can brighten the Otis halo by 

109 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

seeking to diminish that of the orator whose decisive 
utterances, in the very nick of controversy, determined 
the course of empire. A sincere man, Otis gave up 
his office as Advocate-General in order that he might 
be free to do what he thought was right. Struck down 
with a cane in the hands of a King's officer, Otis, Hke 
Sumner in a later epoch, never regained his mental fire. 
That he died by lightning-stroke adds to the tragic 
aspect of his glorious life. 

Otis and Henry pair well together, for Henry also 
was a sincere man. Sometimes he mingled a dry humor 
with his sincerest expressions. Like Lincoln, he could 
joke about himself, if a touch of pleasantry served to 
relieve a situation. Judge Tyler says : 

" In a conversation with him once at his own house, upon 
his first essay into the political world, I asked him how he ven- 
tured to lift up his voice against so terrible a junto as that he 
had to oppose, when he first stirred the country to assert its 
political rights. His reply was, that he was convinced of the 
rectitude of the cause and his own views, and that although he 
knew that many a just cause had been lost, and for wise pur- 
poses Providence might not interfere for its safety, yet he was 
ivell acquainted with the great extent of our hack country, 
which would always afford him a safe retreat from tyranny, but 
he was always satisfied that a united sentiment and sound 
patriotism would carry us safely to the wished-for port, and if 
the people would not die or be free, it was of no consequence 
what sort of government they lived under." 

So, whatever might have happened to Otis, it is doubt- 
ful whether Henry would have permitted himself to 
be caught for purposes of hanging."^ 

* It may be that, while talking with Tyler, Henry had in 
mind the Stamp Act song : 

" With the Beasts of the Wood, we will ramble for Food, 
And lodge in wild Desarts and Caves ; 
And live Poor as Job on the Skirts of the Globe, 
Before we'll submit to be Slaves." 

no 



THE ORATOR OF NATURE 

He was now a continental celebrity. In Virginia, 
says Jefferson, " Mr. Henry took the lead out of the 
hands of those who had heretofore guided the proceed- 
ings of the House, that is to say, of Pendleton, Wythe, 
Bland, Randolph, and Nicholas." William Wirt well 
expresses a similar idea when he says that " after this 
debate there was no longer a question among the body 
of the people as to Mr. Henry's being the first states- 
man and orator in Virginia. Those, indeed, whose 
ranks he had scattered, and whom he had thrown into 
the shade, still tried to brand him with the names of de- 
claimer and demagogue. But this was obviously the 
effect of envy and mortified pride. . . . From the 
period of which we have been speaking, Mr. Henry 
became the idol of the people of Virginia." " His, in- 
deed," says William Cabell Rives, in the " Life and 
Times of Madison," '' was a distinguished and splendid 
role. By his ever memorable resolutions in opposition 
to the Stamp Act, and the lofty eloquence with which 
he sustained them, he struck a timely blow which re- 
sounded throughout America and the world, and roused 
a spirit that never slumbered till its great work was 
accomplished. The moment was opportune and critical ; 
and he seized it with a bold and felicitous energy that 
belonged to his ardent and impassioned nature. His 
was the temperament and the genius of the great popu- 
lar orator, that fitted him to lead at such a moment, 
and, like Aaron, to proclaim the divine message of 
freedom to his countrymen, and of wrath and denunci- 
ation to their oppressors." 



Ill 



VI 

HIS PROGRESS — HIS PERSONALITY 

Henry had now lived almost half his life. He was 
twenty-nine when, by his Stamp Act stroke, he became 
a continental celebrity; he was thirty-nine when he de- 
livered his most powerful and celebrated oration. The 
intervening decade was one of progress with him. He 
grew in power, in popularity, and to some extent in 
fortune. Let us first outline his private and professional 
life during these ten years, and then attempt to draw 
nearer to him than we have so far been — to get at his 
looks, his habits, and such personal minutiae as may help 
us to feel that we are actually acquainted with the man 
himself. 

" Roundabout," in Louisa County, Vv^as his home dur- 
ing the three years next following the date of his 
Stamp Act triumph. His father, who, with Master 
Walker, still kept at " Mount Brilliant " a classical 
school of some twenty pupils, had turned over to him 
the '' Roundabout " farm in payment of a loan. Patrick 
also bought the rights of a map " of Virginia upon 

* The manuscript Journal of the House of Burgesses for 1766, 
lately copied in London, shows that on Nov. 10 a memorial of 
Colonel John Henry on the subject of this map was read and 
referred. He set forth the advantages that would accrue from 
" an accurate survey ". of the colony. He wished to have the 
roads measured and marked, and claimed that the public would 
then know whether venire men and witnesses travelling to the 
General Court were getting their due or more than they de- 
served. He pointed out the benefit that would arise from mark- 
ing the shoals in the Chesapeake and the rivers. Lastly, there 
should be a colony map and a map for each county, " together 
with the most curious and entertaining observations relative to 

112 



HIS PROGRESS 

which Colonel Henry had spent time and money. 
" Colonel Henry's fortune was much reduced from a 
want of good management and knowledge of plantation 
affairs," says Colonel Meredith. So the son dutifully 
stood by the father, who was good enough at map- 
making and good at Greek, but not good in ordinary 
business. Here at hand is a manuscript letter written 
by the old gentleman. It deals zestfully with a certain 
Greek verb, and intimates that the true inwardness of 
this same verb will be further probed by the very next 
mail. He died in February, 1773, having dwelt in 
America some fifty years. 

Before us, also, is a present-day letter from Captain 
W. T. Meade, of Louisa, who tells us of *' Roundabout" : 

" Tradition says that Mr. Henry settled in this county in 
1764, and left here in 1767. This may be correct, though there 
was a conveyance of land in 1770, as well as in 1764. In look- 
ing over the county records, Mr. Henry's name is frequently 
seen. One item is to the effect that Patrick Henry, junior, con- 
veyed to John Henry a tract of land on Fork and Roundabout 
creeks. I knew the building in which Mr. Henry is said to 
have lived, just one hundred years after his residence there. It 
was a story-and-a-half structure, about 20 by 18 feet, with a 
shed on the north side. This shed was well finished off as a bed- 
room, which, added to one and often two bedrooms upstairs in 
the main building, furnished the sleeping apartments for the 
household. Around every Virginia mansion there were scat- 
tered several small buildings which served the purpose of 
kitchens, lumber-rooms, pantries, and smoke-houses ; and there 
was almost always one which was fitted up as a bedroom for 
the boys of the establishment. These outhouses were called 
into requisition when there was an unusual number of visitors ; 
so that a description of a mansion gives a very inadequate idea 
of the proprietor's capacity for entertainmg his guests. At the 

the country, its Productions, number of inhabitants. Rarities, 
Trade, and whatever else may be judged proper to be inserted 
in the Vacant Places of the said Maps." John Henry's map 
of Virginia is described at length in the Historical Magazine 
for September, 1863, VII, 286-288. 

8 113 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

time that I first knew the premises, forty-two years ago, there 
were many such outbuildings at ' Roundabout,' but none, I 
think, that had been there during Mr. Henry's occupancy. 
These buildings have now (1906) all gone down. 

*' The situation is a pretty one. It is on a hill which com- 
mands a beautiful view of the Roundabout Valley, and is about 
three hundred yards from the little creek of that name. A hun- 
dred and forty years ago it was just between two great thor- 
oughfares that led from the mountains to the seaboard ; and 
tradition says that the location was then considered one of the 
best in this region. 

"As to reminiscences of Mr. Henry's Louisa life, my old 
neighbor. Captain William Perkins, used to say that his father, 
who joined farms with Mr. Henry, told him that he (Henry) 
was a great sportsman and an expert with rod and rifle. He 
always walked to court, carrying his gun, and hunting by the 
way. This old neighbor, who owned Henry's ' Roundabout ' 
place, belonged to a family noted for its longevity. He died 
about 1870, at 88. His father died at 98, and his grandfather 
at 109. His mother is said to have danced a jig at 103." 

Henry not only helped his father, but likewise ad- 
vanced money to save his father-in-law, Shelton, from 
business sacrifices. In one of the fee-books is an account 
of how the money-making lawyer thus acquired 3,335 
acres of wild land on Moccasin Creek and the Holston, 
and of his long journey thither in company with his 
brother and William Christian, then a law-student in 
Henry's office, and soon to marry a much-loved sister, 
Anne. The memorandum in the fee-book does not tell 
of the party's route to the wilderness, or of their adven- 
tures there ; but the expedition brings to mind Henry's 
liking for the " back country " and his disposition to 
roam. In this respect he had something of the Indian 
in him, just as he had in his eloquence. To break camp 
in Hanover and move to Louisa, or quit Louisa for 
Hanover, did not rtiffle him. Weightier afifairs soon 
lessened his love for rod and rifle ; but in his best hunting 
days he must have felt allurement in the " Three-chop " 
road — a forest trail so called because one could follow it 

114 



HIS PROGRESS 

from tidewater to the gap of the Rivanna by the sign 
of triple axe-marks in the bark of trees along the way. 
What a message from man to man these axe-marks 
were ! — " There's a continent to conquer ; come on ! " 

Henry is said to have hunted deer " several days to- 
gether, carrying his provisions with him, and encamping 
out in the woods of nights." After the hunt " he would 
go to Louisa Court clad in a coarse cloth coat, greasy 
leather breeches, and a pair of saddle-bags on his arm " 
— and win his cases. How much better it would be if 
we could go with him into the forest, among the wild 
grapes and plums, where there was plenty of honey- 
comb in the tree-hollows — how much more thrilling it 
would be if we could give the details of a deer-chase, 
with Henry hallooing his wildest, and turn our backs 
upon the figures in the fee-books now under our eye! 
But life had become more serious for him. His hunting 
days were about over. Not that he ever ceased to be 
a son of Nature. He always retained certain marked 
characteristics of a country-bred man, and the longings, 
too ; and he appreciated the wholesomeness of what we 
call " roughing it." Work it was that weaned him away 
from the woods ; and, in following his work, we must 
turn to the fee-book figures and repeat a few of them 
here. They indicate that he was hard at it right along — 
that he had in mind the welfare of his increasing family 
at " Roundabout." In 1765 his law cases numbered 
557; in 1766, a time of political turmoil, 114; in 1767, 
554: and in 1768, 354. Furthermore, these fee-book 
figures serve to gauge the rising Revolutionary tide. 
In 1769 Henry charged 132 fees; in 1770, 94; in 1771, 
100; in 1772, 43; in 1773, 7; in 1774, not one. Private 
quarrels became more and more infrequent under pres- 
sure of the great public quarrel. Business was inter- 
rupted, and often the courts did not sit. 

Though Henry's practice extended to other counties, 

115 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

it was mainly in Louisa, Goochland, and Hanover, 
whither he returned with his family in 1768. The fol- 
lowing year we find him in the General Court at Wil- 
liamsburg; and in 1771 it was made known throughout 
the colony that he had succeeded to the practice of no 
less a man than Robert Carter Nicholas. Still rising in 
the world, Henry bought " Scotchtown," in Hanover, 
where he lived for five years. It may be assumed that 
Nicholas, who stood at the head of the Virginia bar, 
knew Henry's capacity as a lawyer. Others were not 
so free to admit that the Hanover genius was sound 
in his legal knowledge. They were like the sarcastic 
Baron Alderson, who, when Brougham — '' the tremen- 
dous Harry " — was made Lord Chancellor, is reported 
to have said : "What a wonderfully versatile mind has 
Brougham ! He knows politics, Greek, history, science ; 
if he only knew a little law, he would know a little of 
everything." Sarcasms were flung at Henry, too. At 
the same time, his detractors were obliged to admit that 
he frequently accomplished things. For instance, he 
appeared in the Court of Admiralty as counsel for a 
Spanish captain whose vessel and cargo had been libelled. 
Concerning his triumph there, Nathaniel Pope writes : 

" I heard Captain George Dabney, who was present, say that 
the judge who presided [William Nelson] after the trial was 
over declared that he never heard a more eloquent or argu- 
mentative speech in his life ; that he was greatly superior to 
Pendleton, Mason, or any other counsel who spoke in the cause, 
and that he was ' astonished how Mr. Henry should have 
acquired such a knowledge of the maritime law, to which he 
supposed he had never before turned his attention.' " 

Various " Henry traits " are spoken of in Virginia. 
They include the captivating gesture, a smile that plays 
about the mouth, and a spirited use of the eyes — " the 
Patrick flash." Some ladies, driving along a Virginia 
field road, remarked to each other upon the ungainli- 

116 




THE AYLETT PORTRAIT 

(This head is from a painting of Patrick Henry, long in the 
possession of the Aylett family, and now owned by Mrs. Thomas P. 
Boiling, of Richmond. It is not from life.) 



il 



il 



HIS PROGRESS 

ness of a tall young man just ahead. Evidently the 
youth had never been a military cadet. His slouch hat 
and the slouch in his walk were of a piece. But there 
was a gate across the road. He put down a fishing-rod, 
and swung the gate wide open. As he did so, he bowed, 
smiled, stood erect like a lord. The act so surprised 
and charmed the ladies that they spoke of it later. 
*' Oh," said the person addressed, " he's one of old Pat- 
rick's descendants — those are the Henry traits. You've 
really seen Patrick Henry." 

Patrick Henry's physical measurements are not so ex- 
actly known to us as those of General Washington. 
Houdon handed down a marble Washington modelled to 
a hair upon the great original. We even have a trace of 
a Washington smile ; for it is said that when his face 
was encased in Houdon's plaster and he heard his wife 
approaching, he suddenly realized the ludicrousness of 
his situation and cracked the mask by the uncontrollable 
play of his mouth-muscles. But Houdon did not copy 
Plenry's lineaments ; nor did Saint Memin, who traced 
on pink paper and finished in black crayon the life-size 
profiles of some eight hundred Americans of that gener- 
ation. By his use of the physionotrace and pantograph, 
Saint Memin served us well — much better than did some 
of the old mezzotint engravers, who did not scruple to 
pass off one man's portrait for that of another. Thus 
a German of a by-gone age, who actually had four plates, 
scratched enough faces out of them to illustrate a book 
on all the celebrities of the world. Henry looked like 
Captain Cook, the navigator, and an unscrupulous pub- 
lisher is said to have made his Cook engraving do for 
both ; whence arose a taking tale. It was said that Sully 
" constructed " his Henry portrait from a Captain Cook 
print, supplemented by the recollections of men who had 
known the great orator. Sully did nothing of the sort. 
William Wirt Henry writes : 

117 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

" During the trial of the British Debt cause in the United 
States Court at Richmond, a French artist attended, and painted 
a miniature of Patrick Henry, representing him as speaking. 
The artist presented the miniature, set in gold, to Mr. Henry, 
who afterward gave it to the wife of his half-brother, Mrs. John 
Syme. While Mr. Wirt was preparing his ' Life ' of Mr. Henry, 
he was allowed by the Flemings, descendants of Colonel Syme, 
to have a portrait painted by Thomas Sully, of Philadelphia, 
from this miniature. The artist copied the miniature, with 
some slight alterations as to the wig, suggested by Chief- 
Justice Marshall. The portrait when completed was entrusted 
to Mr. James Webster, the publisher of Mr. Wirt's ' Life of Pat- 
rick Henry,' in order that it might be engraved for the forth- 
coming volume. Afterward Mr. Wirt, while Attorney-General 
of the United States, presented the portrait to John Henry, 
who was living at Red Hill with his mother. He was too young 
when his father died to have remembered him, but his mother 
and older brothers and sisters pronounced it the best likeness 
they ever saw of Patrick Henry." 

Chief-Justice Marshall, Francis Corbin, and the Rev. 
John Buchanan, all intimately acquainted with Patrick 
Henry, left written testimony as to the accuracy of the 
Sully picture. Hence this painting goes down in history 
as the true likeness. The Aylett head, the clay bust, and 
the statue by Crawford in the Capitol Square group 
at Richmond * set forth the lineaments thus preserved. 

Both the Sully portrait and a profile sketch made by 
B. H. Latrobe refer to a much later period in Henry's 
life than the middle one now under consideration ; not 
only so, but most of the old-time writers tell of him 

* The Richmond group by Thomas Crawford shows Washing- 
ton on horseback in the centre, overtopping all. From the 
plinth on which this statue stands extend the five rays of a 
star, each ray bearing a statue of a distinguished Virginian. 
One of these bronze figures represents Henry in the act of 
uttering, " Give me Liberty or give me Death." There is an 
oil painting of Henry in Independence Hall. In the Capitol at 
Washington is another notable portrait. Henry's face looks 
down from the ceiling of the Continental Congress chamber in 
Carpenters' Hall. 

ii8 



HIS PROGRESS 

as he was in his dedining days, rather than as he 
looked when in his prime.* Arnold's summary with 
respect to him is interesting : *' Six feet, slight stoop, 
rather spare, dark complexion, grave countenance, eyes 
overhung by long dark lashes and full eyebrows — bril- 
liant, full of spirit, rapid in motion ; forehead high and 
straight; nose somewhat of Roman stamp." Again we 
read of Henry : '' He was tall and spare, but of limbs 
round enough for either vigor or grace. He had, how- 
ever, a slight stoop, such as very thoughtful people are 
apt to contract." And again : " He was nearly six feet 
high, spare and raw-boned, with a slight stoop to his 
shoulders." 

So many American statesmen have been round-shoul- 
dered that one is tempted to speak of it as " the states- 
man's stoop." Perhaps *' the Lincoln stoop " would con- 
vey a more exact idea. Tall civilians, moving with 
caution through a wicked world with low doorways and 
few portals arched in splendor, are apt to take care of 
their heads. Spencer Roane mentions the stoop, adding 
that Henry was " middle-sized." Thus, while there is 
no doubt about the stoop, a question is raised as to the 
stature. The Rev. Archibald Alexander, who found him 
'' lean rather than fleshy," says : '* He was rather above 
than below the common, height, but had a stoop in the 
shoulders which prevented him from appearing as tall 
as he really was. In his moments of animation, he had 
a habit of straightening his frame, and adding to his 
apparent stature." In other words, only when Henry 
swung himself to his tiptoeing height, in the fine frenzy 

* The " Longacre portrait " of Henry is frequently seen. 
The original engraving was made by E. Wellmore from a 
painting by J. B. Longacre, after the Fleming miniature. The 
engraved " Chappel portrait " of Henry is from a painting by 
Alonzo Qiappel. The Sully portrait was engraved by W. S. 
Leney in 1817. 

119 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

of his oratorical enthusiasms, did he reach or overtop 
the six-foot mark. 

All agree that Henry's forehead beetled somewhat and 
rose well before it rounded back, in a symmetrical curve, 
on normal lines. There was room enough inside the head 
for whatever brains a man might need. All agree con- 
cerning the oval cast of countenance, the long nose, and 
the mouth. This was so shaped as to strengthen the 
masculinity of his appearance — an actor's mouth, or 
an orator's ; and his well-kept teeth were sound. His 
lips met as if they were accustomed to the meeting, and 
as if each knew its place. The upper one was long. 
It probably outmeasured the flat of Henry's razor-blade ; 
and when he used this same razor on the sides of his face, 
it had plenty of space to go over, for the jawbones were 
big. Latrobe makes him almost lantern- jawed. Less 
hollow than Lincoln's, his cheeks had an inward sag, 
and he must have contrasted strangely with Peyton 
Randolph, who possessed a notable pair of jowls. All 
agree, too, concerning Henry's hueless skin. The ruddy 
men, as a rule, lived farther away from tidewater. But 
all do not agree as to the color of his eyes. In Judge 
St. George Tucker's vivid and charmingly analytical 
pen-picture which is about to be copied — a description 
that shows us Henry just as he was in his most virile 
days — his eyes are said to be gray. Judge Roane assures 
us : " He had a fine blue eye, and an excellent set of 
teeth, which, with the aid of a mouth sufficiently wide, 
enabled him to articulate very distinctly. His voice was 
strong, harmonious, and clear, and he could modulate, 
it at pleasure." " Go out on a perfectly clear day and 
look up at the sky," said his daughter Sarah to William 
Wirt Henry, " and you will have an excellent idea of 
the color of his eyes." 

Does it bring us down from the blue too abruptly to add 
that he w^as bald from early youth, that his slight fringe 

120 



HIS PROGRESS 

of natural hair was reddish brown, and that in public 
he always wore a wig? But, having taken the testimony 
of those who knew him best with regard to the color of 
his eyes, we may come at once to the description by 
Tucker, then a student at William and Mary College. 
Judge Tucker says : 

"The General Court met in April [1773]. Mr. Henry prac- 
ticed as a lawyer in it. I attended very frequently ; generally 
sat near the clerk's table, directly opposite to the bar. I had 
now for the first time a near view of Mr. Henry's face. He 
wore a black suit of clothes and (as was the custom of the bar 
then) a tie-wig, such as Mr. Pendleton wore till his death. 
His appearance was greatly improved by these adventitious 
circumstances. His visage was long, thin, but not sharp, dark, 
without any appearance of blood in his cheeks, somewhat 
inclining to sallowness ; his profile was of the Roman cast, 
though his nose was rather long than high, his forehead high 
and straight, but forming a considerable angle with the nose; 
his eyebrows dark, long, and full ; his eyes a dark gray, not 
large, penetrating, deep-set in his head ; his eyelashes long and 
black, which, with the color of his eyebrows, made his eyes 
appear almost black; a superficial view would indeed make it 
be supposed they were perfectly black ; his nose was of the 
Roman stamp, as I have said; his cheekbones rather high, but 
not like a Scots-man's ; they were neither as large, as near the 
eyes, nor as far apart as [are those of] the natives of Scotland ; 
his cheeks hollow ; his chin long but well-formed, and rounded 
at the end, so as to form a proper counterpart to the upper 
part of the face. I find it difficult to describe his mouth, in 
which there was nothing remarkable, except when about to 
express a modest dissent from some opinion upon which he 
was commenting; he then had a half sort of smile, in which 
the want of conviction was, perhaps, more strongly expressed 
than that cynical or satirical emotion which probably prompted 
it. His manner and address to the court and jury might be 
deemed the excess of humility, diffidence, and modesty. If, as 
rarely happened, he had occasion to answer any remark from 
the bench, it was impossible for meekness herself to assume a 
manner less presumptuous, but in the smile, of which I have 
been speaking, you might anticipate the want of conviction 
expressed in his answers, at the moment that he submitted to 

121 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

the ' superior wisdom ' of the court, with a grace that would 
have done honour to the most polished courtier in Westminster 
Hall. 

" In his reply to counsel, his remarks on the evidence and on 
the conduct of the parties, he preserved the same distinguished 
deference and politeness, still accompanied by the never-failing 
index of this sceptical smile when the occasion prompted. His 
manner was solemn and impressive ; his voice neither remark- 
able for its pleasing tones or the variety of its cadence, nor for 
harshness. If it was never melodious (as I think), it was 
never, however, raised harsh. It was clear, distinct, and capable 
of that emphasis which I incline to believe constituted one of 
the greatest charms in Mr. Henry's manner. His countenance 
was grave (even when clothed with the half smile I have men- 
tioned), penetrating, and marked with the strong lineaments of 
deep reflection. When speaking in public, he never (even on 
occasions when he excited it in others) had anything like 
pleasantry in his countenance, his manner, or the tone of his 
voice. You would swear he had never uttered or laughed at a 
joke. In short, in debate either at the bar or elsewhere, his 
manner was so earnest and impressive, united with a contrac- 
tion or knitting of his brows which appeared habitual, as to 
give his countenance a severity sometimes bordering upon the 
appearance of anger or contempt suppressed, while his language 
and gesture exhibited nothing but what was perfectly decorous. 
He was emphatic, without vehemence or declamation ; animated, 
but never boisterous ; nervous, without recourse to intemperate 
language; and clear, though not always methodical." 

This certainly puts Henry upon his feet for us, and 
makes him alive again. One has no imagination what- 
ever if, after reading Judge Tucker's memorabilia, one 
cannot get a sight of the subject himself. The sunlight 
comes in on him as he stands at the bar before an impres- 
sive bench of judges ; and v^e view him from head to 
foot. There is particularization ; there is a categorical 
counting of buttons and buckles ; there is " long expo- 
sure," as the photographers say, and all that one's mind 
has to do is to sensitize itself, take the picture, and 
develop it. After this we shall at least feel that the 
Henry of the bar and the forum is fairly well known 

122 




THE CLAY BUST OF PATRICK HENRY 
(Made from life by an Italian in 1788, and copied in bronze.) 



HIS PROGRESS 

to us, even though we may doubt our grasp of him when 
he is playing other parts. We shall remember his 
gravity, his earnestness, as betokened by brows that knit 
and unknit, his deference and restraint, and, above all, 
we shall bear in mind his demurring smile, which con- 
veyed with delicacy and instantaneous effect much that 
could not be safely trusted to words. 

Judge Tucker's reference to Henry's voice leaves us in 
doubt as to whether it were melodious or otherwise. 
It was never harsh, but " not remarkable for its pleasing 
tones." Henry varied his manner to meet his audience 
and impress his contention. One of the earliest writers 
to present him in a realistic way, outlining him with 
exactitude, said, in the Southern Literary Messenger, 
August, 1847: 

'* He was gifted with a strong and musical voice, often ren- 
dered doubly fascinating by the mild splendors of his brilliant 
blue eyes. When animated, he spoke with the greatest variety 
of manner and tone. It was necessary to involve him in some 
great emergency in order to arouse his more sterling qualities, 
and then, to the surprise of himself as well as everybody else, 
he would in the most splendid manner develop 

" ' A treasure all undreamt of : as the night 
Calls out the harmonies of streams that roll 
Unheard by day.' 

" He was careless in dress, and sometimes intentionally and 
extravagantly awkward in movement ; but always, like the phos- 
phorescent stone at Bologna, he was less rude than glowing. He 
could be vehement, insinuating, humorous, and sarcastic by 
turns; and to every sort of style he gave the highest effect." 

" He wore coarse apparel '' — " his leather breeches 
were greasy " — " he was careless in dress." There are 
so many insinuations that Henry was unappreciative of 
the colonial tailor as to warrant us in flaunting forth a 
contradictory fact. At this very time he wore a peach- 

123 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

blossom colored coat in the streets of Williamsburg. 
'' When I first saw Mr. Henry," says Judge Tucker, 
" which was in March, 1773, he wore a peach-blossom 
colored coat, and a dark wig which tied behind, and I 
believe [had] a bag to it, as was the fashion of the day." 
But it may be recalled in this connection that the 
colonial gentry were accustomed to adorn themselves 
with fine raiment. In Boston John Hancock habitually 
wore a scarlet coat of velvet, with velvet ruffles on the 
sleeves. General Gage grimly suggested that by and by 
the fashion in Hancock's case would change to iron 
ruffles. 

" As for their king, John Hancock, 
And Adams, if they're taken, 
Their heads for signs shall hang up high 
Upon the hill called Beacon." 

With regard to Henry and dress, the simple fact is 
that at this period he was seeking to overcome his negli- 
gence and to adjust himself to his surroundings. " Sartor 
Resartus " was yet to be written ; but he probably had 
thought a little for himself on the subject of shoemakers 
and tailors. Year by year he was widening his field of 
activity, and sound common-sense told him that he must 
conform to the usages of society. We are told that at 
the bar '^ he wore a full suit of black cloth or velvet, and 
a tie-wig, which was dressed and powdered in the first 
style of forensic fashion." In winter he shielded him- 
self with a cloak of scarlet cloth. The Sully portrait 
shows him in black, with a white cravat. Over his 
shoulders is a red velvet mantle. This was " his usual 
dress while in the Legislature." 

Henry was a water-drinker. He was temperate in 
eating. He never swore — not even at the King. All 
his habits were simple, from youth to old age. " In his 
friendships," says Captain George Dabney, " he was 

124 



HIS PROGRESS 

sincere." He was of " a cheerful disposition, and an 
agreeable companion." He had " a great respect for the 
Christian religion." John Bright's grandmother, Rachel 
Wilson, of the Society of Friends, wrote in the diary of 
her Virginia travels, under date of Williamsburg, March 
31, 1769: " We returned that night to Francis Clark's. 
Called by the way to see one of the Assemblymen, who 
was a man of great moderation; his name was Patrick 
Henry. He received us with great civility, and made 
some sensible remarks. We had an open time in the 
family." 

Henry's relation with the Quakers was notably frank 
and sympathetic. Presently we shall see how free he 
was to open his mind to them on a subject that dis- 
tressed him. But, more than any other sect, the Baptists 
won his attention at this particular time. Robert B. 
Semple, in his " History of the Baptists in Virginia," 
tells of the tribulations of various ministers of that 
church who were sent to jail as '' disturbers of the 
peace." They were bold in their demand for freedom 
of speech and persistent in their attempts to secure it. 
'' It was in making these attempts," says Semple, " that 
they were so fortunate as to interest in their behalf the 
celebrated Patrick Henry ; being always a friend of 
liberty, he only needed to be informed of their oppres- 
sion ; without hesitation, he stepped forward to their 
relief. From that time until the day of their complete 
emancipation from the shackles of tyranny, the Baptists 
found in Patrick Henry an unwavering friend. May 
his name descend to posterity with unsullied honor ! " * 

* Foote, in his " Virginia Sketches," tells of certain Baptists 
who preached through the prison bars at Fredericksburg. At 
their trial, the prosecutor declared : *' They cannot meet a man 
upon the road but they must ram a text of Scripture down his 
throat." Foote says that Patrick Henry rode fifty miles to 
volunteer his services in behalf of the Baptists. A dramatic 

125 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

So interested did Henry become in this work that he 
paid out of his own pocket the jail fees of the Rev. 
John Weatherford, whose release in Chesterfield County 
had been secured through his agency. Not for twenty 
years did this clergyman know that Henry had been his 
good angel. 

scene is described, and a part of a speech attributed to Henry 
has been much quoted ; but there is reason to believe that Henry 
did not make the speech. A controversy on the subject arose 
in 1871, Horatio Gates Jones defending and the editor of the 
Richmond Religious Herald assailing the authenticity of the 
printed version. 



126 



VII 

EARLY LEADERSHIP CONTRAST AND COMPARISON 

Having drawn as near to Henry's person as au- 
thenticated facts permit, we come again to that part of 
his pubHc Hfe immediately antedating the Revolution. 
It was a glorious period for him. In those days edu- 
cated people slipped into the classics with facility and 
frequency; so Henry's oratory was likened to that of 
the greatest of the Greeks. There is no offence when 
Byron, in " The Age of Bronze," raptly sings of him 
as " the forest-born Demosthenes " ; but then, Byron 
was taking no more than the poet's license. For critical 
purposes, will it not be less incongruous if, catching 
Edmund Randolph's cue, we contrast him with a certain 
great English orator of his own generation ; and will it 
not be still more to the point if, after that, we compare 
him with a certain maltster who labored in the patriot 
cause elsewhere in America? One cannot well survey 
the life and times of Patrick Henry without also seeing 
the potential figures of William Pitt and Samuel 
Adams. 

But, before bringing on these worthies, it w^ill make 
for coherence if we set forth in short order a few facts 
that are essential to a clear understanding of Henry's 
life. It should be said that he was a Burgess from 
1765 until the ancient Assembly practically ceased to 
exist ; that he became the leader of the popular party, 
in opposition to Edmund Pendleton, when, in a fierce 
contest, Richard Henry Lee's bill separating the offices 
of Speaker and Treasurer was forced through the 
House ; that thereafter Lee was Patrick Henry's friend, 
and Pendleton by no means such ; and that the animosi- 

127 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

ties then engendered lingered so long as to tincture 
adversely various estimates of Henry, even after his 
death. 

Let us make no mistake as to the character of the 
House of Burgesses, or misconceive the scope and 
quality of Henry's leadership. Until within a year past 
the Journals of the House were incomplete, but they 
are no longer so. The volumes for 1766, 1767, and 
1768, which were missing, have been found in the Brit- 
ish Public Record Office, and transcribed for the Vir- 
ginia State Library. Therefore a Henry student may 
follow the proceedings of the colonial legislators, day 
by day, from Stamp Act times until the outbreak of 
the Revolutionary War. Such a student will find a 
great deal to impress him. He certainly will find 
" atmosphere." The House was ceremonious and dig- 
nified, but like the elephant in the fable, it could pick 
up a pin. It could teach the King of England his busi- 
ness, or order that no member should " chew tobacco 
while the Speaker was in the chair." It could congrat- 
ulate mankind upon the birth of the Princess Sophia, 
or listen appreciatively to an account of some such 
political brawl as that between High Sheriff Hoskins 
of Halifax and Candidate Terry. Colonel Terry appears 
to have given the House more trouble than anybody 
else except George the Third. Terry was a colonial 
" fire-eater." An election was going on in Halifax 
County, and he reached the ground, " stripped for a 
fight, with his cane in his hand." Then : 

" The said Hoskins came up to the door, when the said Terry 
said to him, * Damn you ! Will you use me ill ? ' Or words to 
that purpose. To which Hoskins replied, * I intend to use no 
man ill.* Terry then said he had no clerk, but should have one 
in a little time [to take the poll] ; and asked Hoskins if he was 
determined to read the writ [to open the polls earlier than 
usual]. Hoskins replied, 'I am.' Upon which the said Terry 

128 



EARLY LEADERSHIP 

declared if he did, he would be damned if he did not cane him. 
' Why, then,' said Hoskins, ' I will be damned if I don't ; and 
cane away ! ' . . , Upon which the said Terry moved one hand 
towards the Writ and raised his Stick with the other, which 
was caught by Moses Terry." 

But this extract from the Journal covers a mere 
incident — a triviality, introduced here to show that the 
Burgesses had a world of their own around them, and 
that Henry, as a part of this world, gave his mind to a 
thousand and one matters not at all connected with 
the great storm then brewing. The Journals bear evi- 
dence that his work in committee was important and 
well done. It is clear that he was always ready, with 
his '* acute common sense," to suggest and supervise. 
Let it not be assumed, however, that he overshadowed 
his fellow-members of the House of Burgesses, which 
was a business body, and which contained men who 
regarded themselves as his superiors. Indeed, in speak- 
ing of Henry as a " leader," it is not meant that he 
prescribed policies or managed a pack of followers in 
the manner of a modern " boss." Far from it. He 
regarded himself as personally responsible to the free- 
men of Hanover for whatever he did in their name. 
It was customary for the electors to meet at the Court- 
house on a set day, and it was incimibent upon the 
Burgesses of that county to attend, and, if necessary, 
to answer the questions of the people. Any man who 
had a vote felt that it was his privilege to shake a cate- 
chising finger at his representative. If Patrick Henry 
had been a negligent, or corrupt, or otherwise faithless 
official, he would have been denounced from the stump 
on the Court-house green. It would have been obliga- 
tory upon him to defend himself then and there. The 
electorate had high regard for Henry, but they were 
not subservient to him or afraid of him. Any one of 
a hundred men could and would have arraigned him if 

9 129 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

he had done Virginia a disservice. All public men, 
at a somewhat later period, when true democracy had 
triumphed, were accountable to the public in face-to- 
face testimony, debate, and ruling. Perhaps it was this 
sense of personal responsibility that made statesmen 
grow great in Henry's day. 

Keenly interested in the frontier, Henry served on 
the Indian and Boundary comirdttees, and actually 
journeyed to New York, with Richard Bland, in the 
hope of bettering the regulations of the Indian trade. 
Fauquier was now dead, and the kind and courtly 
Botetourt was acting towards the Virginians in a spirit 
such as Pitt himself might have shown, had he fled to 
so small a capital as Williamsburg in order to escape 
the agonies of governm.ent, if not those of gout. 

For gout had gone to William Pitt's head, and played 
havoc there. He was Lord Chatham now, and not 
himself at all. To the King, he was still '' that perfid- 
ious man " ; yet the British world was distempered, and 
his Majesty had sent for him as successor to the Mar- 
quis of Rockingham. Therefore he was Prime Min- 
ister, but only so in name. In seeking to prevent a 
rupture with America, he had to contend against the 
ignorance of the British governing class, a venal Par- 
liament, and the blind rancor of the King. As in Wal- 
pole's time, this venal Parliament could show " rows 
of ponderous fox-hunters, fat with Staffordshire or 
Devonshire ale." Chatham hid in the country. 
" Junius " called him a " lunatic." Lecky says of him : 
" Of all great Englishmen he is perhaps the one i-n 
whom there was the largest admixture of the qualities 
of the charlatan." But Americans, excusing his arti- 
ficialities and his insincerities, find it against the grain 
to so regard him. They cannot but think of him as 
a friend. They feel that he was betrayed by Charles 
Townshend, the witty and eloquent poseur, who 

130 



EARLY LEADERSHIP 

" shifted his politics with every new moon " ; who made 
" champagne speeches," crying, '' England is undone 
if this taxation is given up/' and who took advantage 
of a time when Chatham's mind was unhinged to lay 
an import tax on America's wine, oil, fruits, glass, 
paper, lead, painters' colors, and tea — ^thereby pleasing 
the King, but risking wreck for a glorious empire. It 
may be that Chatham was really out of his senses at 
this time. He played potentate ; he bought and tore 
down neighboring houses, so that he could live in seclu- 
sion ; he kept chickens on the grill night and day, lest 
by and by his appetite and his wits should of a sudden 
return. His wits did return, and he labored like a giant 
for America. Only with his dramatic (or, perhaps 
we should say, melodramatic) death did he cease to 
thunder against " the dismemberment of this ancient 
and most noble monarchy." 

Somehow, we seem to correct certain errors in our 
Americanized sense of proportion by recalling Chatham 
in connection with Henry. One was primitive, plain, 
a man of the provinces ; the other, a complex develop- 
ment of high-pressure life at the centre of English 
civilization. One was simple and sincere ; the other 
cloaked himself constantly. But each had a lofty view, 
each was far-seeing, each was patriotic, and each was 
born to enthrall mankind with masterful tongue. 

As an orator, Henry had much in common with 
Chatham, whose voice was melodious and whose gesture 
and delivery were superb. Arthur S. McDowall says: 
" The most remarkable characteristic of his speaking 
was its union of dramatic power with a striking moral 
ascendancy; and this was the salient characteristic of 
his life as well as oratory." Grattan said : " He light- 
ened upon his subject and reached the point by the 
flashings of his mind, which were felt but could not be 
followed." In this, he was Henry over again. 

131 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

But King George and Mr. Townshend and another 
man made Chatham's oratory unavaiHng, Let us con- 
sider this other man — Samuel Adams. If Henry were 
the trumpeter of the Revolution, Adams was beyond 
all question its organizer. As with Henry, his start 
in life was such as to foreshadow failure. His enemies 
declared that he bore the regal government a grudge 
because of his father's misadventure in the Land Bank 
scheme. They attributed a selfish motive to Otis also, 
saying that he was revengeful, and that he never would 
have been a patriot if the " greedy Hutchinsons " had 
not snatched the Chief-Justiceship from James Otis, 
Senior. All this, of course, is beside the mark. Adams 
had few equals in public spirit. What did he care if 
his malt-house roof fell in? He was poor — the people 
clothed him. They repaired his dwelling for him. They 
put silver Johannes into his pocket because they knew 
he was working for them and could not be bribed. 
Some believe that our American word " caucus " first 
issued, not from the throat of a crow, but from the 
mouth of a patriotic Bostonian who was trying to say 
*' Caulkers' Club." Adams agitated among the caulk- 
ers and rope-makers and organized the Caulkers' Club, 
just as he organized everything else. If not the first 
American politician, he was the first genius in Amer- 
ican politics. Governor Hutchinson — a forceful man, 
a great man, indeed — soon called Adams " the chief 
incendiary of the province." Daniel Leonard, loyalist, 
denounced his plan to knit together the tov/n-meetings 
of Massachusetts as '' the foulest, subtlest, and most 
venomous serpent ever issued from the egg of sedition." 
Adams, says Bancroft, was " the helmsman of the Revo- 
lution at its origin, the truest representative of the 
home rule of Massachusetts in its town-meetings and 
General Court." He not only schemed like a politi- 
cian, but planned like a statesman, and grew in boldness 

132 



EARLY LEADERSHIP 

and practicality with the growth of his own great work. 
It is rarely that a man is both strategist and zealot, as 
Samuel Adams was. So shrewd was he that one might 
imagine him cold by nature ; but how warm a heart 
he had for his fellow-men is attested in his sacrifices 
and labors. When we compare Adams with Henry, 
we find that each was virile, sagacious, comprehensive 
in mental grasp, and animated by the spirit of democ- 
racy. Let this spirit become debased, and it is of slight 
worth ; but when first welcomed in an imaginative mind, 
no theoretical conception has truer human warmth 
and beauty. It operates to expel from one caste self- 
ishness, pride, and even that imp which clings closest to 
us — greed. It humanizes, fraternizes, puts a large phil- 
anthropy into our politics. It reverses the line : *' His 
hand will be against every man, and every man's hand 
against him." Ishmael dies, and with him we bury a 
selfish civilization. Svich is the idea of democracy in its 
first glow, and there is no doubt that there were 
moments when both Adams and Henry were influenced 
by it. 

But, while alike in certain of the larger qualities, the 
two differed greatly in environment as well as in indi- 
vidual traits. At this period of their lives, Adams was 
far beyond Henry in executive ability and proselyting 
skill. Except for some thousands of Hutchinsonians 
and other loyalists, all Massachusetts was at school — 
with Adams as the teacher. When it became clear that 
this brewer was brewing rebellion, the King's anger 
fell upon Boston. Troops came. There was a massacre 
of citizens. With Lord North on one side of the sea 
and General Gage on the other, the persistent King 
grew more and more enamored of punitive processes. 
In course of time the port was shut. The charter of 
the colony was taken away. Up and down the whole 
seaboard, the people watched these proceedings, and 

133 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

were filled with grave concern. They knew that what 
happened in one province might happen in all. They 
had no stomach for such coercion, and felt the unifying 
impulse that is quickly bred under the menace of a 
general calamity. Not alone with the Whig masses 
was it so, but with men like John Dickinson, whose 
" Letters to a Pennsylvania Farmer " appealed to the 
intellect rather than to the passions. 

Dickinson it was who wrote to Richard Henry Lee: 
" Virginia, sir, has maintained the common cause, with 
such attention, spirit, and temper as has gained her the 
highest degree of reputation among the other colonies. 
It is as much in her power to dishearten them as to 
encourage them." While there was far less of ferment 
in Virginia than in Massachusetts, and no bloodshed 
whatever, the spirit aroused by Henry was consistently 
maintained. This, too, in face of the fact that Nor- 
borne Berkeley, Baron de Botetourt, labored with 
delicacy, sympathy, and all those winning arts of which 
he was master to coax the Virginians back the way 
they had come. His purpose was to hold the colony 
aloof from her seditious sisters. Fine lindens shaded 
the grounds around his " palace " at Williamsburg, and 
fine companies gathered there, as well as in the spacious 
reception-room hung with portraits of the King and 
Queen. Tactful he was, and, better still, sincere — well 
worthy of the noble statue erected in his honor by those 
whom he vainly sought to hold to an allegiance they 
were prone to forswear. For Botetourt failed. He 
could not undo Henry's work. Every year some fresh 
event rearoused the people. When the King wished 
to deport his '* traitors " for trial in England, the House 
of Burgesses uttered a protest. Washington, working 
with George Mason, proposed that Americans should 
organize general non-importation societies ; and this 
was done with effect. Massachusetts was applauded 

134 



EARLY LEADERSHIP 

for her " attention to liberty." Knowing that they 
would be prorogued for resolving against the regal 
government, the Burgesses nevertheless resolved. 
Time and again they took up their hats and walking- 
sticks, ascended to the Council Chamber above stairs 
in the Capitol, and received the rebukeful message that 
sent them to their homes. But they did not always 
go straight home. It suited them at times to reassemble 
in the " Apollo room " of the Raleigh Tavern. This 
was a large frame building with two fronts. Over the 
main entrance was a leaden bust of Sir Walter Raleigh 
The '' Apollo " or long room became so famous as a 
meeting-place of anti-government men that John Esten 
Cooke finds a certain fitness in calling it the " Faneuil 
Hall of Virginia." As the quarrel progressed, it grew 
to be a sort of opposition capitol. Especially was this 
the case after Botetourt's death, when John Murray, 
Earl of Dunmore, became Governor. Botetourt had 
been courtly; Dunmore, a pupil of Bute himself, was 
" coarse and depraved." Botetourt had been in Henry's 
way; Dunmore accelerated the work of the Hanover 
" rebel." 

For, though not exactly a rebel of the Adams type, 
Henry merited the name. As ex-President Tyler said 
to Hugh Blair Grigsby : " John Tyler called a son after 
Wat Tyler. On one occasion when Patrick Henry vis- 
ited Mr. Tyler, between whom and Henry there existed 
a long and intimate friendship, terminated only by the 
death of the latter, he saw the infant on the lap of his 
mother and asked his name. * He is called. Colonel 
Henry, after the two greatest rebels in English his- 
tory.' ' Pray, madam, who were they ? '• * Wat Tyler 
and Patrick Henry.' The name of the boy was Walter 
Henry Tyler." But, rebel though he was, it should not 
be inferred that Henry was lacking in the quaHties 
of patience and circumspection. No man knew better 

135 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

than he when to strike and when to stay his hand. 
** No man ever knew men better, singly or in mass," 
says the author of " Homes of American Statesmen " ; 
" none ever better knew how to sway them ; but none 
ever less abused that power ; for he seems ever to have 
felt, with a religious force, the solemnity of all those 
public functions which so few now regard." " It was 
to him," said Thomas Jefferson to Daniel Webster, 
" that we were indebted for the unanimity that pre- 
vailed among us." There is other direct evidence to 
this effect in the matter of Henry's long leadership 
prior to the clash of arms. 

But we do ourselves a manifest disservice if we so 
shut our minds as to see Henry only in those acts and 
attitudes which happened to be noted by his neigh- 
bors, friends, or rivals. The documentary cue is essen- 
tial; but, given cues enough, we may reenflesh the 
man. Shall he come out from behind the curtain and 
bow to us only when Judge Tyler, or Mr. Jefferson, or 
some other contemporary can be persuaded to mention 
him ? Rather let us assume that he was abroad on many 
a bright day and many a stormy one ; that his horse 
knew other roads than the road from Hanover to the 
Capitol, and that in his rides from county court to 
county court he was not averse to the use of his tongue 
in the patriot cause. In other words, we are justified 
in assuming that Henry made speeches of which no 
records survive. The Virginia thunder-storm comes 
up, sweeps the land, passes, and is forgotten save for 
the freshening of the corn glistening under the sun. 
So Henry, speaking at some remote cross-roads, 
whither he had journeyed in his circuit, may have 
thundered against the King, though no echo of his 
words has reached us. Occasionally one finds some 
such Williamsburg incident as this, related by Major 
Scott to Judge Roane : '' Mr. Henry was declaiming 

136 



EARLY LEADERSHIP 

against the British King and ministry, and such was 
the effect of his eloquence that all at once the specta- 
tors in the gallery rushed out. It was at first supposed 
that the house was on fire. Not so. But some of the 
more prominent of these spectators ran up into the 
cupola and dowsed the royal flag which was there sus- 
pended ! " 

This must have been during the exciting Dunmore 
days, to which period Jefferson refers when he says : 

" Subsequent events favored the bolder spirits of Henry, the 
Lees, Pages, Mason, etc., with whom I went in all points. Sen- 
sible, however, of the importance of unanimity among our con- 
stituents, although we wished to have gone faster, we slackened 
our pace, that our less ardent colleagues [Pendleton, Wythe, 
Bland, Randolph, and Nicholas] might keep up with us ; and 
they, on their part, differing nothing from us in principle, quick- 
ened their gait somewhat beyond that which their prudence 
might of itself have advised, and thus consolidated the phalanx 
which breasted the power of Britain. By this harmony of the 
bold with the cautious, we advanced with our constituents in 
undivided mass, and with fewer examples of separation than, 
perhaps, existed in any other part of the Union." 

Jefferson is justified in using " we " when he thus 
testifies concerning the events of one century for the 
enlightenment of the children of another century. We 
are to assume that he meant to impart the truth ; but, 
to get at the real truth, it is essential to bear in mind 
that he was an old man and likewise a veteran in 
embittered controversies when he wrote the foregoing 
and following reminiscences. After he had presented 
to the world that document so precious to Americans, 
his life was one continued course of experimental 
republicanism. He gave and received hard blows. He 
passed through so much that his sight was by no means 
so clear or his nature so generous as when he had 
danced with his Belinda in the Raleigh's " Apollo," or 

137 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

a little later sat with Henry there, planning to outwit 
the King. Henry was Jefferson's senior by seven 
years ; Henry had long led the Assembly and the 
people ; Henry it was whom Dunmore regarded as the 
chief marplot of the colony. According to William 
Cabell Rives, Dunmore and Henry were mutually afraid 
of each other. At any rate, Henry was the head and 
front of disaffection. We may question, therefore, 
whether he did not loom larger to young Thomas 
Jefferson in 1773 than to the reminiscent great man in 
1814. There is an amusing passage in Jefferson's 
'' Autobiography " with respect to his " Summary 
View of the Rights of British America." Being ill, 
he had sent a copy of it to Henry. " Whether Mr. 
Henry disapproved the ground taken, or was too lazy 
to read it (for he was the laziest man in reading I 
ever knew), I never learned: but he communicated it to 
nobody." * Possibly Henry was preoccupied ; possibly 
he had a reason for his neglect ; but the passage as it 
stands serves to shed light upon Jefferson's own char- 
acter rather than Henry's. When Jefferson speaks of 
Henry, it is well to remember the marked dissimilarity 
of their mental habits, their moral tone, and their 
general outlook upon a world big enough for them both. 
Certainly the " Apollo " was big enough for them 
both, and big enough to hold their many associates — 
among them Dabney Carr, who had married Jefferson's 
sister Martha. Young Carr was so able, so brilliant, 
so zealous, that he undoubtedly would have won fame 
as a founder of the nation had he not died in the morn- 
ing of his day. Let Jefferson tell his story here, since 
it brings in Henry too. The times, it should be remem- 
bered, were " tea-party " times — those enlivening times 

* Jefferson elsewhere writes : " Mr. Henry probably thought 
it too bold, as a first measure, as the majority of the mem- 
bers did." 

138 




THE RALEIGH TAVERN, WILLIAMSBURG 

(Here, May i8, 1769, May 27, 1774, and August, 1774, members of the House of 
Burgesses entered into associations against the importation or purchase of British 
manufactures. Drawn from an old print.) 




.fessSf^^te"/ ; \ 



THE OLD CAPITOL, WILLIAMSBURG 
( Built 1705, burned 1746; rebuilt, and again burned 1832. Drawn from an old print. 



EARLY LEADERSHIP 

when liberty-poles were put up and cut down and put 
up again, and the colonists drank tea '* made of dried 
mullein, catnip, balm, sage, and raspberry leaves." But 
one of Governor Spotswood's daughters (Mrs. Ber- 
nard Moore, of Chelsea), it is said, ''continued to sip 
her tea in the closet after it was banished from the 
table." Says Jefferson: 

" Not thinking our old and leading members up to the point 
of forwardness and zeal which the times required, Mr. Henry, 
R. H. Lee, Francis L. Lee, Mr. Carr, and myself agreed to meet 
in the evening in a private room of the Raleigh to consult on 
the state of things. There may have been a member or two 
more I do not recollect. We were all sensible that the most 
urgent of all measures was that of coming to an understanding 
with all the other colonies to consider the British claims as a 
common cause to all, and to produce an unity of action : and 
for this purpose that a committee of correspondence in each 
colony would be the best instrument for intercommunication : 
and that their first measure would probably be to propose a 
meeting of deputies from every colony at some central place, 
who should be charged with the direction of measures which 
should be taken by all. We therefore drew up the resolutions 
which may be seen in Wirt, page 87. The consulting members 
proposed to me to move them, but I urged that it should be 
done by Mr. Carr, my friend and brother-in-law, then a new 
member, to whom I wished an opportunity should be given of 
making known to the house his great worth and talents. It 
was so agreed ; he moved them, they were agreed to nem. con., 
and a committee of correspondence appointed of whom Peyton 
Randolph was chairman. The Governor (then Lord Dunmore) 
dissolved us, but the committee met the next day, prepared a 
circular letter to the Speakers of the other colonies, enclosing 
to each a copy of the resolutions, and left it in charge with their 
chairman to forward them by expresses." 

Such was the origin of the permanent Committees 
of Correspondence which opened the way for the Con- 
tinental Congress. Henry was on the Virginia Com- 
mittee. At once the importance of the plan was appre- 
ciated. " Heaven itself seemed to have dictated it to 

139 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

the noble Virginians," said the Nezv Hampshire Gazette. 
** O Americans, embrace this plan of union as your life ! 
It will work out your political salvation." William 
Lee wrote from London that it " struck a greater panic 
into the Ministers than anything that had taken place 
since the Stamp Act." 

Nevertheless, in spite of the shock, the Ministry did 
little to lessen and much to increase the colonial embit- 
terment. So the quarrel was cumulative. A year of 
agitation passed; and when the Burgesses reassembled 
at Williamsburg, on May 5, 1774, the spirit of discord 
was stronger than ever, with Henry, not Dunmore, 
master of the situation. Dunmore had picked a boun- 
dary quarrel with Pennsylvania. He had embroiled the 
colony with the Indians. Perhaps he was plotting a 
diversion. If such were his purpose, he was well 
thwarted, and that too in this very month of May. An 
historic and a dramatic month it was, especially the 
last week, which was crowded with events, as had been 
the last week in May nine years before. Among the 
great Virginians then upon the scene was George 
Mason. He was '' a powerful reasoner, a profound 
statesman, and a devoted republican." He writes from 
Williamsburg, under date of May 26, to his friend 
Martin Cockburn : 

" I arrived here on Sunday morning last, but found every- 
body's attention so entirely engrossed by the Boston affair, that 
I have as yet done nothing respecting my charter-rights, and, I 
am afraid, shall not this week. 

" A dissolution of the House of Burgesses is generally ex- 
pected ; but I think it will not happen before the House has 
gone through the public business, which will be late in June. 

*' Whatever resolves or measures are intended for the preser- 
vation of our rights and liberties will be reserved for the con- 
clusion of the session. Matters of that sort here are conducted 
and prepared with a great deal of privacy, and by very few 
members, of whom Patrick Henry is the principal. 

140 



EARLY LEADERSHIP 

" At the request of the gentlemen concerned, I have spent an 
evening with them on the subject, when I had an opportunity 
of conversing with Mr. Henry and knowing his sentiments ; as 
well as of hearing him speak in the House since on different 
occasions. He is by far the most powerful speaker I ever heard. 
Every word he says not only engages but commands the atten- 
tion ; and your passions are no longer your own when he ad- 
dresses them. But his eloquence is the smallest part of his 
merit. He is in my opinion the first man on this continent, 
as well in abilities as public virtues, and had he lived in Rome 
about the time of the first Punic war, when the Roman people 
had arrived at their meridian glory, and their virtue not tar- 
nished, Mr. Henry's talents must have put him at the head of 
that glorious Commonwealth." 

Good set terms are these. " But his eloquence is the 
smallest part of his merit." It is not extravagant to 
assert that Henry never had better praise from any 
man than Mason's. The source of the stream is pure ; 
and so it sparkles, and will continue to sparkle. 

Mason was generous ; Jefferson, hardly so. Again 
it is he who takes up the thread of Henry's story, inter- 
weaving it with his own. In the " Memorandum " he 
remarks : " The next great occasion on which he 
[Henry] signalized himself was that which may be 
considered the dawn of the Revolution in March [May], 
1774." And in the ''Autobiography" he says: 

" The next event which excited our sympathies for Massa- 
chusetts was the Boston Port bill, by w^hich that port was to 
be shut up on the ist of June, 1774. This arrived while we 
were in session in the spring of that year. The lead in the 
House on these subjects being no longer left to the old mem- 
bers, Mr. Henry, R. H. Lee, Fr. L. Lee, three or four other 
members whom I do not recollect, and myself, agreeing that we 
must boldly take an unequivocal stand in the line with Massa- 
chusetts, determined to meet and consult on the proper measures 
in the Council Chamber, for the benefit of the library in that 
room. We w^ere under conviction of the necessity of arousing 
our people from the lethargy into which they had fallen as to 
passing events ; and thought that the appointment of a day of 

141 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

general fasting and prayer would be most likely to call up and 
alarm their attention. No example of such solemnity had 
existed since the days of our distresses in the war of '55, since 
which a new generation had grown up. With the help therefore 
of Rushworth, whom we rummaged over for the revolutionary 
precedents and forms of the Puritans of that day, preserved by 
him, we cooked up a resolution, somewhat modernizing their 
phrases, for appointing the first day of June, on which the Port 
bill was to commence, for a day of fasting, humiliation, and 
prayer, to implore heaven to avert from us the evils of civil 
war, to inspire us with firmness in support of our rights, and to 
turn the hearts of the King and Parliament to moderation and 
justice. To give greater emphasis to our proposition, we agreed 
to wait the next morning on Mr. Nicholas, whose grave and 
religious character was more in unison with the tone of our 
resolution, and to solicit him to move it. We accordingly went 
to him in the morning. He moved it the same day ; the first of 
June was proposed, and it passed without opposition. The 
Governor dissolved us as usual. We retired to the Apollo as 
before, agreed to an association, and instructed the Committee 
of Correspondence to propose to the correspondence committees 
of the other colonies to appoint deputies to meet in Congress at 
such place, annually, as should be convenient to direct, from time 
to time, the measures required by the general interest; and we 
declared that an attack on any one colony should be considered 
an attack on the whole. This was in May." 

It was the 27th of May, and there was much more 
excitement at the Capitol than Jefferson's measured 
words imply. True, the outward aspect of things was 
peaceful ; for in the hall of the House, on the evening 
of the 28th, a ball was given in honor of Lady Dunmore 
and her daughters ; but there was a deep undercurrent 
setting towards colonial unity, and, if need be, war. 
Elsewhere on the continent there was a great stir, and 
in other quarters of it, this same red-letter week, prop- 
ositions were made that intercolonial delegates should 
assemble in a general Congress. But ofificially the Vir- 
ginians led. Elsewhere, also, on the first of June busi- 
ness was suspended, bells were tolled, and flags were 
lowered to half mast. In Virginia, says Jefferson, " the 

142 



EARLY LEADERSHIP 

people met generally, with anxiety and alarm in their 
countenances, and the effect of the day thro' the whole 
colony was like a shock of electricity, arousing every 
man and placing him erect and solidly on his centre. 
They chose universally delegates for the convention." 

To this convention, which sat in Williamsburg during 
the first six days in August, the freeholders of Hanover 
sent Patrick Henry and his half-brother, John Syme. 
*' L^nited we stand, divided we fall," said the freehold- 
ers in their address to the two delegates. Nor was the 
spirit of the convention itself less ardent. All things 
were making for union. L'nlike Samuel Adams, Henry 
had no occasion for further local manoeuvring. With 
Pe\ton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George Wash- 
ington, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, and Ed- 
mund Pendleton, he was chosen to attend the Conti- 
nental Congress. 

" LTnlike Adams," it is said ; and with reason, for 
though Adams had overthrown his pow^erful antagonist, 
Thomas Hutchinson, he was outfaced by General Gage 
with veteran regiments at his back. In crediting Henry 
with successful leadership in Virginia, the honest mind 
cannot but revert to the burden borne by Adams in 
Massachusetts. And to round out our comparison 
between the two leaders, Adams may well come into 
our pages at this particular juncture. Many able men 
in many parts of the land were at work in a common 
cause; and only by taking their several efforts into 
account can one reach a just conclusion as to the ser- 
vices and merits of an individual. Some there were 
whose fortunes w^ere directly jeopardized; some whose 
sacrifices were nobly made ; some whose great worth 
only their neighbors knew. But in the matter of the 
comm.ittees of correspondence which led to the " Con- 
gress of Committees " now about to meet, one dare not 
fail to give Adams his due. He did not suggest the 

143 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

idea of permanent intercolonial committees — that was 
a Virginia suggestion ; but in all likelihood the plan was 
an outgrowth of his scheme for interknitting the Massa- 
chusetts towns. Professor James K. Hosmer, telling 
of the genesis of the Boston Committee, adds: 

" The towns almost unanimously appointed similar com- 
mittees ; from every quarter came replies in which the senti- 
ments of Samuel Adams were echoed. In the library of Ban- 
croft is a volume of manuscripts, worn and stained by time, 
which have an interest scarcely inferior to that possessed by the 
Declaration of Independence itself. . . . They are the original 
replies sent by the Massachusetts towns to Samuel Adams' 
Committee, sitting in Faneuil Hall, during those first months 
of 1773. One may well read them with bated breath, for it is 
the touch of the elbow as the stout little democracies dress up 
into line, just before they plunge into actual fight at Concord 
and Bunker Hill. There is sometimes a noble scorn of the re- 
straints of orthography, as of the despotism of Great Britain, 
in the work of the old town clerks, for they generally were 
secretaries of the committees ; and once in a while a touch of 
Dogberry's quaintness, as the punctilious officials, though not 
always 'putting God first,' yet take pains that there shall be 
no mistake as to their piety by making every letter in the 
name of the Deity a rounded capital. Yet the documents ought 
to inspire the deepest reverence. They constitute the highest 
mark the town-meeting has ever touched." 

Adams had set a great yeomanry astir and become 
their master spirit. We have brought Henry to the 
point of setting out for Philadelphia ; let us see how 
Adams and his associates turned their faces towards 
the same city. " Am told," says John Andrews, " they 
made a very respectable parade in sight of five of the- 
regiments encamped on the Common, being in a coach 
and four, preceded by two white servants well mounted 
and armed, with four blacks behind in livery, two on 
horseback and two footmen." It was a new experience 
for Samuel Adams — his first long trip from Boston; 
it was a new experience for Patrick Henry — rarely 

144 



EARLY LEADERSHIP 

had he been under any other blue roof than that which 
arched from the Appalachies to the Chesapeake. 

With Pitt at the opening, Pitt also comes in at the 
close of this chapter of contrasts and comparisons ; for, 
in his manuscript " History of Virginia," Edmund 
Randolph, who in Stamp Act times was a fine little 
Williamsburg aristocrat of twelve, drew a parallel 
between the two orators, and depicted Henry in the 
elaborate manner now about to be reproduced. Of 
the young men of the Revolution few were so rich in 
promise as the learned and brilliant Randolph, Wash- 
ington's aide — the Whig son of a Tory father who fled 
to die in lamentation over-sea. Like Judge St. George 
Tucker, Randolph was by no means a Henry enthusiast 
— at least in his latter days. Politics bred coldness as 
well as heat. Tucker once permitted himself to be 
unfair towards Henry ; and, later, Randolph was at 
bitter odds with him. Thus Tucker's pen-sketch, 
already given, as well as Randolph's, which follows, 
was made with the left hand rather than with the right. 
No incense is burned by either. Having told of the 
aristocracy, this grandson of Sir John Randolph pro- 
ceeds, in his deliberate and exact, if somewhat oracular, 
style : 

" To Patrick Henry the first place is due, as being the first 
who broke the influence of that aristocracy. Little and feeble 
as it was, and incapable of daring to assert any privilege clash- 
ing with the right of the people at large, it was no small exer- 
tion in him to surprise them with the fact that a new path was 
opened to the temple of honor, besides that which led through 
the favor of the King. 

" He was respectable in his parentage : but the patrimony of 
his ancestors and himself was too scanty to feed ostentation or 
luxury. From education he derived those manners which be- 
long to the real Virginian planter, and which were his ornament, 
in no less disdaining an abridgement of personal independence, 
than in observing every decorum interwoven with the comfort 
of society. 

10 145 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

" With his years the unbought means of popularity increased. 
Identified with the people, they clothed him with the confidence 
of a favorite son. Until his Resolutions on the Stamp Act, he 
had been unknown, except to those with whom he had asso- 
ciated in the hardy sports of the field and the avowed neglect 
of literature. Still he did not escape notice, as occasionally 
retiring within himself in silent reflection, and sometimes des- 
canting with peculiar emphasis on the martyrs in the cause of 
liberty. This enthusiasm was nourished by his partiality for 
the dissenters from the established church. He often listened 
to them, while they were waging their steady and finally ef- 
fectual war against the burthens of that church, and from a 
repetition of his sympathy with the history of their sufferings, 
he unlocked the human heart, and transferred into civil discus- 
sions many of the bold licenses which prevailed in the religions. 
If he was not a constant hearer and admirer of that stupendous 
master of the human passions, George Whitefield, he was a fol- 
lower, a devotee of some of his most powerful disciples at 
least. All these advantages he employed by a demeanor inof- 
fensive, conciliating, and abounding in good humor. 

" For a short time he practiced the law in a humble sphere — 
too humble for the real height of his powers. He then took a 
seat at the bar of the General Court, the supreme tribunal of 
Virginia, among a constellation of eminent lawyers and schol- 
ars, and was in great request even on questions for which he 
had not been prepared by much previous erudition. 

" Upon the theatre of legislation, he entered, regardless of 
that criticism which was profusely bestowed on his language, 
pronunciation, and gesture. Nor was he absolutely exempt 
from an irregularity in his language, a certain homespun pro- 
nunciation, and a degree of awkwardness in the cold commence- 
ment of his gesture. But the corresponding looks and emo- 
tions of those whom he addressed speedily announced that 
language may be sometimes peculiar, and even quaint, while 
it is at the same time expressive and appropriate ; that a pro- 
nunciation which might disgust in a drawing-room may yet 
find access to the heart of a popular Assembly; and that a 
gesture at first too much the effect of indolence may expand 
itself in the progress of delivery into forms which would be 
above rule and compass, but strictly within the prompting of 
nature. Compared with any of his more refined contempo- 
raries and rivals, he by his imagination, which painted to the 
soul, eclipsed the sparklings of art ; and knowing what chord of 
the heart would sound in unison with his immediate purpose, 

146 



EARLY LEADERSHIP 

and with what strength or peculiarity it ought to be touched, 
he had scarcely ever languished in a minority up to the time 
to which his character is now brought. 

" Contrasted with the most renowned of British orators, the 
elder William Pitt, he was not inferior to him in the intrepidity 
of metaphor. Like him, he possessed a vein of sportive ridi- 
cule, but without arrogance or dictatorial malignity. In Henry's 
exordium there was a simplicity and even carelessness, which 
to a stranger, who had never before heard him, promised little. 
A formal division of his intended discourse he never made, but 
even the first distance, which he took from his main ground, 
was not so remote as to obscure it, or to require any distortion 
of his course to reach it. With an eye which possessed neither 
positive beauty, nor acuteness, and which he fixed upon the 
moderator of the Assembly addressed, without straying in quest 
of applause, he contrived to be the focus to which every person 
present was directed, even at the moment of the apparent 
languor of his opening. He transfused into the breasts of 
others the earnestness depicted in his own features, which ever 
forbade a doubt of sincerity. In others rhetorical artifice, and 
unmeaning expletives, have been often employed as scouts to 
seize the wandering attention of the audience : in him the 
absence of trick constituted the triumph of nature. His was the 
only monotony which I ever heard reconcilable with true elo- 
quence ; its chief note was melodious, but the sameness was 
diversified by a mixture of sensations, which a dramatic ver- 
satility of action and countenance produced. His pauses, which 
for their length might sometimes be feared to dispel the atten- 
tion, rivetted it the more by raising the expectation of renewed 
brilliancy. In pure reasoning he encountered many successful 
competitors ; in the wisdom of books many superiors ; but 
though he might be inconclusive, he was never frivolous ; and 
arguments which at first seemed strange, were afterwards dis- 
covered to be select in their kind, because adapted to some 
peculiarity in his audience. His style of oratory was vehement, 
without transporting him beyond the power of self-command, 
or wounding his opponents by deliberate offence ; after a debate 
had ceased, he was surrounded by them on the first occasion 
with pleasantry on some of its incidents. His figures of speech, 
when borrowed, were often borrowed from the Scriptures. The 
prototypes of others were the sublime scenes and objects of 
nature ; and an occurrence of the instant he never failed to 
employ with all the energy of which it was capable. His 
lightning consisted in quick successive flashes, which rested 

147 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

only to alarm the more. His ability as a writer cannot be 
insisted on : nor was he fond of a length of details, but for 
grand impressions in the defence of liberty, the western world 
has not yet been able to exhibit a rival. His nature had prob- 
ably denied to him, under any circumstances, the capacity of 
becoming a Pitt, while Pitt himself would have been but a 
defective instrument in a Revolution the essence of which 
was deep and pervading popular sentiment." 



148 



VIII 

ON A LARGER STAGE THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS 

What is our American tendency with respect to 
those who colonized this part of the world, freed it from 
foreign control, and opened it to the use of man? 
Towards hero-worship, beyond doubt. 

So strong is this tendency that it puts us under an 
illusion, makes poetry sometimes out of rank prose, and 
keeps us from seeing the colonists, founders and pion- 
eers, as they actually were. 

On the other hand, those who attempt to destroy the 
illusion often go too far in their iconoclasm. The swing 
is from one extreme to its opposite. At times we suspect 
our idol-smashers of seeking to curry favor with high 
authorities abroad — the world-scholars, who themselves 
are under still older illusions. We see also that the 
iconoclasts omit, or severely qualify, certain old-fash- 
ioned laudatory passages, however well-based, as if 
determined not to lay themselves open to the charge 
of departing from a set tone of restraint and reserve. 
Not a few of them mistake abuse for illuminating fact ; 
accordingly, they seek to rewrite Revolutionary history 
from the standpoint of petty scandal. They patch 
anecdotes together, and give us a caricature in silhouette 
rather than a portrait or a character. Thus they attack 
John Hancock — tell how Samuel Adams prepared his 
speeches for him. They attack Franklin — assume that 
he was lukewarm in behalf of the colonies because his 
son was a crown officer ; and they dwell with unction 
upon the day when " Poor Richard " cowered under 
Wedderburn's savage assault in the presence of the Privy 
Councillors. They attack Washington — even tell of 

149 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

his false teeth, made of hippopotamus tusks ; his im- 
mense nose, often red ; his morning dram ; his propen- 
sity to cuff stable-boys when they failed to rub the mud 
off the legs of his coach-horses; his riches got by mar- 
riage ; his distresses and fits of anger, due to the self- 
ishness, cunning, and duplicity of some of the same 
public men now beautifully embalmed in our hero- 
books. They dig up journals, diaries, letters, ana, and 
memoirs, like Jefferson's and Graydon's, and prove to 
us that our worshipful great ones were really little 
mortals made of clay — in fine and in fact, that our 
" worthies " were unworthy of the admiration and rev- 
erence we bestow upon them. There is no denying 
that the bit of gossip, the realistic trifle, often serves 
a good purpose. It does so when it helps to humanize 
— when it brings us to a clear view of some hazy im- 
mortal who up to that time may have been so unreal 
to us as to be beyond our sympathies. 

But in spite of defamation, and in spite of the method 
of judicious measurement affected by those who go to 
England and look back upon America to get its size 
before writing about it, we hold fast to our heroes. 
We are not so lacking in sense as to run to spread- 
eagleism. Yet we cannot be tepid. Why should we be? 
Who sowed, we say, where millions upon millions 
reap? Who put the nation in a way to grow towards 
its present greatness and that greatness inconceivable 
promised for the future? Again the founders of 
the Republic loom large and take on the hero size. 
Think as we may, the masses of us circle back in the end 
to the point whence we took our start — to our illusions, 
if you please, to our deep love for these men and our 
joy in them. 

The truth is, the First Congress was so manifestly 
admirable as to evoke richer eulogy in its own day than 
it does in ours. The Earl of Camden said that he 

ISO 



ON A LARGER STAGE 

" would have given half his fortune to have been a 
member of that which he believed to be the most 
virtuous public body of men which ever had or ever 
would meet together in this world." Chatham said, in 
the House of Lords: 

*' When your lordships look at the papers transmitted us from 
America, when you consider their decency, firmness, and wis- 
dom, you cannot but respect their cause, and wish to make it 
your own. For myself, I must declare and avow that in all my 
reading of history and observation — and it has been my favor- 
ite study — I have read Thucydides, and have studied and ad- 
mired the master-states of the world — that for solidity of rea- 
soning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion under 
such a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation or 
body of men can stand in preference to the General Congress 
at Philadelphia. I trust it is obvious to your lordships that all 
attempts to impose servitude upon such men, to establish 
despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be vain, 
must be fatal." 

Let us look at close range upon the members of this 
Congress. Sunburnt from off the sea, the South Caro- 
linians were first to reach the place of meeting. Two 
were brought by the Charleston packet ; two by the " Sea 
Nymph." No Georgians appeared. The Northern dele- 
gates came down on horseback or by coach. For some 
hundreds of miles their journey was a patriotic progress. 
Feasts awaited them ; bells were rung, and gunpowder 
salutes were sounded. Anon cavalcades accompanied 
them, and for the Massachusetts delegates in the last 
stage of their journey there was an unexpected dip into 
American politics. Not all things connected with the 
First Continental Congress were so " high-erected " as 
Lord Camden and Lord Chatham imagined. Says John 
Adams : 

" We were met at Frankfort [Frankford] by Dr. Rush, Mr. 
Mifflin, Mr. Bayard, and several other of the most active Sons 
of Liberty in Philadelphia, who desired a conference with us. 

ISI 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

We invited them to take Tea with us in a private apartment. 
They asked leave to give us some information and advice, 
which we thankfully granted. They represented to us that the 
friends of Government in Boston and in the Eastern States, in 
their correspondence with their friends in Pennsylvania and 
all the Southern States, had represented us as four desperate 
adventurers. ' Mr. Gushing was a harmless kind of man, but 
poor, and wholly dependent upon his popularity for his sub- 
sistence. Mr. Samuel Adams was a very artful, designing man, 
but desperately poor and wholly dependent upon his popularity 
with the lowest vulgar for his living. John Adams and Mr. 
Paine were two young Lawyers, of no great talents, reputation, 
or weight, who had no other means of raising themselves into 
consequence but by courting popularity.' We were all suspected 
of having Independence in view. Now, said they, you must not 
utter the word Independence, nor give the least hint or in- 
sinuation of the idea, neither in Gongress or any private con- 
versation ; if you do, you are undone ; for Independence is as 
unpopular in Pennsylvania and in all the Middle and Southern 
States as the Stamp Act itself. No man dares to speak of it. 
Moreover you are the Representatives of the suffering State. 
You are thought to be too warm, too zealous, too sanguine ; you 
must therefore be very cautious. You must not come forward 
with any bold measures ; you must not pretend to take the lead. 
You know Virginia is the most populous State in the Union. 
They are very proud of their * antient Dominion,' as they call it ; 
they think they have the right to lead the Southern States; 
and the Middle States, too, are too much disposed to yield to 
them. This made a deep impression on my mind, and it had an 
equal effect on my colleagues. This conversation, and the prin- 
ciples, facts, and motives suggested in it, have given a color, 
complexion, and character to the whole policy of the United 
States from that day to this (Aug. 6, 1822). Without it . . . 
Mr. Jefferson [would never] have been the Author of the 
Declaration of Independence, nor Mr. Richard Henry Lee the 
mover of it. . . . Although this advice dwelt deeply on my mind, 
I had not in my nature prudence and caution enough always to- 
observe it. It soon became rumored about the city that John 
Adams was for Independence; the Quakers and Proprietary 
gentlemen took the alarm ; represented me as the worst of men ; 
the true-blue Sons of Liberty pitied me ; all put me under a 
kind of Goventry. I was avoided like a man infected with the 
Leprosy. I walked the streets of Philadelphia in solitude, borne 
down by the weight of care and unpopularity." 

152 



ON A LARGER STAGE 

In his " Diary," after telling of the Frankford con- 
ference^ Adams further says : 

" We -then rode into town, and dirty, dusty, and fatigued as 
we were, could not resist the importunity to go to the tavern, 
the most genteel one in America. . . . Here we had a fresh 
welcome to the city of Philadelphia, and, after some time spent 
in conversation, a curtain was drawn, and in the other half 
of the chamber a supper appeared, as elegant as any ever laid 
upon the table." 

This was on the 29th of August. Patrick Henry was 
still in Virginia. For the sake of the glimpses we shall 
get of him — and throughout this period of the Conti- 
nental Congress we are to see him over some one else's 
shoulder, rather than full front, as we should like — it 
behooves us to follow him in his northward journey. 
Quite as spirited as any of John Adams' sketches of 
the delegates is one by an old vestryman, Roger Atkin- 
son, of Mannsfield, near Petersburg, who described the 
Virginia members in a letter to his brother-in-law, 
Samuel Pleasants. Henry, he says, " is a real half- 
Quaker — your brother's man — moderate and mild, and in 
religious matters a saint ; but the very d — 1 in politics — a 
son of thunder. He will shake the Senate. Some years 
ago he had liked to have talked treason into the House." 
Of Peyton Randolph, he says : " A venerable man, whom 
I well know and love ; an honest man ; has knowledge, 
temper, experience, judgment — above all, integrity; a 
true Roman spirit." Of Richard Henry Lee, he says : 
" I think I know the man, and I like him : need I say 
more ? " Of Washington, he says : *' He is a soldier — a 
warrior ; he is a modest man ; sensible ; speaks little ; in 
action cool, like a Bishop at his prayers." Of Colonel 
Bland, he says : " A wary, old, experienced veteran at 
the bar and in the Senate; has something of the look 
of old musty parchments, which he handleth and 

153 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

studieth much. He formerly wrote a treatise against 
the Quakers on water-baptism." Of Benjamin Harri- 
son, he says : " He is your neighbour, and brother-in- 
law to the Speaker (Peyton Randolph) ; I need not 
describe him." Of Pendleton, he says : '' The last and 
best, though all good. The last shall be first, says the 
Scripture. He is an humble and religious man and must 
be exalted. He is a smooth-tongued Speaker, and, 
though not so old, may be compared to old Nestor, — 

" ' Experienced Nestor, in persuasion skill'd, 

Words sweet as honey from his lips distill'd/ " 

Two of these worthies, Pendleton and Henry, became 
Washington's guests at Mount Vernon on the 30th of 
August, and remained there until after dinner on the 
31st. Lee was to have joined them, but had been de- 
tained at his Chantilly estate in Westmoreland. Ran- 
dolph, Harrison, and Bland had gone on before. Wash- 
ington, it may be noted, was now taking an advanced 
and resolute stand on Henry's ground. As it was Wash- 
ington who moved to associate for non-importation, 
there is reason to believe that he had determined long 
before to do what he could to strengthen the colonial 
contention; but in the summer of 1774 there are un- 
mistakable signs of an intensification of feeling on his 
part — of his settled purpose to lend the full weight of 
his shoulder against the King. His speech had been 
the most eloquent in the Convention. He had said: 
" I will raise one thousand men, subsist them at my own 
expense, and march myself at their head for the relief 
of Boston." His wife was equally zealous. If, on the 
evening of the 30th, she talked with Henry about his 
neighbors, her cousins, in Hanover, she probably also 
took part in the political conversation — made all the more 
animated by the presence of George Mason, who had 
come over from Gunston Hall to bid the travellers God- 

154 



ON A LARGER STAGE 

speed to Philadelphia and a happy issue for the con- 
tinent. We can well imagine this party on the Mount 
Vernon lawn, under the August stars, with the Potomac 
sweeping by. " Mrs. Washington," wrote Pendleton to 
a friend, " talked like a Spartan to her son on his going 
to battle. ' I hope you will all stand firm,' she said. * I 
know George will.' " 

Of this meeting, and the Philadelphia pilgrimage, 
Irving says : " Washington was joined at Mount Vernon 
by Patrick Henry and Edmund Pendleton, and they per- 
formed the journey together on horseback. It was a 
noble companionship. Henry was then in the youthful 
vigor and elasticity of his bounding genius, ardent, acute, 
fanciful, eloquent; Pendleton, schooled in public life, 
"a veteran in council, with native force of intellect, and 
habits of deep reflection ; Washington, in the meridian 
of his days, mature in wisdom, comprehensive in mind, 
sagacious in foresight." 

Had these three men been knightly leaders such as 
Sir Walter Scott drew with blithesome pen, they would 
have spurred their horses into the Potomac, swum them 
across that broad and dangerous tide, and, waving fare- 
well to Mrs. Washington from the Maryland shore, 
dashed away towards the North. But the matter-of-fact 
Washington writes : 

"Aug. 31. All the above gentlemen dined here; after which, 
with Colo. Pendleton and Mr. Henry, I set out on my journey 
to Philadelphia, and reached Upper Marlboro. 

" Sept. I. Breakfasted at Queen Anne. Dined at Annapolis 
and lodged at Rock Hall." 

And so on, throughout the itinerary. There is no Sir 
Walter Scott here — not even a John Adams. How 
appreciative we ought to be of Adams as a gossip of the 
Revolution, as well as one of its chief promoters, drivers, 
and managers! His very vanity serves us; just as, 

155 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

conversely, the lack of it in others operates to deprive 
us of little links in the chain of fact. He was a force- 
ful man, but often begrudged the glory bestowed else- 
where. Underestimating the abilities of others, he 
naively gave himself good measure. Censorious he was, 
but illuminating — the father of a fearless and still more 
censorious son. Had John Adams been with the Vir- 
ginia travellers, he probably would have told us that 
in passing from Annapolis to Rock Hall, which is on 
the Eastern Shore of Maryland, they sailed across the 
broad and beautiful Chesapeake Bay. He would have 
told us how cool and green the water looked, and how 
beautifully it broke into spray; and how many sails he 
counted far and near; and what Patrick Henry said to 
him about that " Caesar " speech which made the Bur- 
gesses grow red in the face, crying, " Treason ! 
Treason ! " But it is only the unimaginative Washing- 
ton who reports for us : 

"Sept 2. Dined at Rock Hall (waiting for my horses), 
and lodged at New Town on Chester. 

" Sept. 3. Breakfasted at Down's. Dined at the Brick Tavern 
(Carson's) and lodged at New Castle. 

" Sept. 4. Breakfasted at Christeen Ferry. Dined at Chester 
and lodged at Doctor Shippen's in Philadelphia, after supping 
at ye New Tavern." 

No doubt a welcoming escort would have shown the 
three Virginians into the city had they not come on a 
Sunday. As it was, their arrival was soon known. 
Writing to his wife, Silas Deane said : 

" In the afternoon came in the Virginia and Maryland 
delegates. The Virginia, and indeed all the Southern delegates, 
appear like men of importance. We waited on and were 
introduced to them in the evening. They are sociable, sensible, 
and spirited men, and the short opportunity I had of attend- 
ing to their conversation gives me the highest ideas of their 
principles and character." Again he wrote : " You may tell 

156 



ON A LARGER STAGE 

your friends that I never met, nor scarcely had an idea of 
meeting, with men of such firmness, sensibility, spirit, and 
thorough knowledge of the interests of America as the gentle- 
men from the Southern Provinces appear to be." 

" They are fine fellows from Virginia,'' wrote Joseph 
Reed, " but they are very high. The Bostonians are 
mere milksops to them. We understand they are the 
capital men of the colony, both in fortune and under- 
standing." 

In these little group-sketches there is no singling out 
of any one, so we are seeing Henry only by indirection. 
He blends with the others. Soon the various delegations 
pass into one great picture, and it becomes difficult to 
dissociate and individualize. Thanks to John Adams, 
we are enabled to fix our attention for a moment upon 
Thomas Lynch, of South Carolina, who had much to 
do with the preliminary arrangements of the Congress, 
" a solid, firm, judicious man " ; upon Philip Livingston, 
of New York, '' a great, rough, rapid mortal " ; upon 
William Livingston, of New Jersey, " a plain man, tall, 
black . . . nothing elegant or genteel about him "; upon 
James Duane, of New York, " who has a sly, surveying 
eye, a little squint-eyed . . . very sensible, I think, and 
very artful " ; and upon Caesar Rodney, of Delaware, 
*' the oddest looking man in the world ; he is tall, thin 
and slender as a reed, pale ; his face is not bigger than 
a large apple, yet there is sense and fire, spirit, wit, and 
humor in his countenance." 

" At ten," continues Adams, in his memorandum for 
Monday, September 5, " the delegates all met at the 
City Tavern, and walked to the Carpenters' Hall, where 
they took a view of the room, and of the chamber 
where is an excellent librar}-. There is also a long 
entry where gentlemen may walk, and a convenient 
chamber opposite to the library. The general cry was 
that this was a good room." 

157 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

From the east window of this room sloops and schoon- 
ers could then be seen in Dock Creek, long since van- 
ished. The Hall stood in an open lot. Delegates had 
to go but a few steps from the New Tavern in Second 
Street, at the corner of Gold, to be at the place of meet- 
ing. By the side of high buildings which now encompass 
it, the Hall looks like a toy house ; yet the British 
soldiers who shot holes into the copper ball on the vane 
above the cupola no doubt felt that their target was high 
enough. 

To tell the story of the Hall is almost to tell in 
brief the story of the province. The bricks were from 
England, whence the bulk of the Quakers came. The 
roofing slate was from Wales, whence more Quakers 
came. Let us now liken the mortar to the Scotch-Irish 
and the sturdy Germans who cemented the keystone of 
the Commonwealth, and we round out our comparison. 
To this day no bricklayer, but only a granite-cutter, can 
break the mortar used by the master-carpenters of Phila- 
delphia, whose trade lineage and traditions were those 
of the Worshipful Company of Carpenters founded in 
London in 1477. The colonial mechanics built well. 
Already their city of five thousand houses was the model, 
for many towns in the Middle Colonies, and it was the 
metropolis of the continent. There were no Sir Christo- 
pher Wrens among them, but they had learned something 
of Sir Christopher's art. Numerous " elegant seats " on 
the suburban hills supplied evidence of their skill. They 
were substantial men, given to holding fast like their 
hand-wrought nails ; and, since the Assembly of the 
province was about to occupy the State House, it was 
doubtless a pleasure to these builders to be able to extend 
the courtesy of their hall to the builders of a nation. At 
any rate, undeterred by such warning as that in the 
Royalist, which said to them, " Your necks may be in- 
conveniently lengthened, if you don't look out," they 

158 



ON A LARGER STAGE 

gave over the main chamber of their hall, with its twelve 
twelve-paned windows and its thirteenth fan-windovv^, 
to the representatives of the thirteen colonies. But those 
who in these days visit Carpenters' Hall to view the 
stage of action, and thereby assist, themselves, in re- 
peopling it with the actors, should be reminded that only 
half of the present chamber was in use by the Congress. 
There was a partition then, extending on the north and 
south line from doorway to doorway ; and there were 
two chambers instead of one. 

To Patrick Henry, with his quick, sharp way of look- 
ing at things, there must have been much of interest in 
the men he met and the sights he saw — the crowds, the 
markets, the paved and lamp-lit streets, the Quaker life 
of the town ; the women, in drab, no less fine for lack 
of color in their garb ; the red-coated soldiers ; sailors 
from afar; the watchmen who called out the hours 
when all was still. Untravelled as Henry was, this must 
have seemed to him a new world. 

But especially was he interested in the state of opinion 
in this great colony, and the prospect of cooperative 
effort on the part of such leaders as Galloway and 
Dickinson. In Galloway he was quick to recognize a 
polished man, with masterful qualities, but no friend, 
certainly. With " Farmer " Dickinson, '' tall, slender as 
a reed, pale as ashes," it was different. He was refined, 
rich, literary. At home he heard from his own mother 
such Tory foreboding as this : ^' Johnny, you will be 
hanged ; your estate will be forfeited and confiscated ; 
you will leave your excellent wife a widow, and your 
charming children orphans, beggars and infamous." 

Henry could readily understand the difference between 
Dickinson's political position and his own. Dickinson's 
mind was logical, loyal, unimaginative, unrebellious. He 
was too intellectual to blow up his own dormant fires 
with good Whig bluster. What did he care for the 

159 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

unborn Republic which others had begun to adumbrate 
in their dreams? Justice he wanted, but justice with 
peace. In spite of royal and ministerial harshness 
amounting to unnatural tyranny, he could not but love 
that mother country over-sea. He was a power among 
the Quakers, and they likewise were irresolute. They 
thought ill of the politics of King George, but well of 
the dear land whence they had wandered. 

Charles Thomson, also, interested Henry. Thomson's 
life was a romance. As an eleven-year-old boy, he was 
one of the twenty thousand exiles from Ulster. His 
father and mother were buried at sea, and he and his 
little brothers and sisters were as waifs on the shore — 
destitute, forlorn. At New Castle, the night he was put 
off the ship, he slept at a blacksmith's, and, hearing the 
blacksmith lay plans to make an apprentice of him, he 
slipped away in the darkness. Next morning, on the 
road, a gentlewoman stopped her carriage to question 
him ; made much of him ; sent him to a classical school. 
Hearing an auctioneer cry, "^ An unknown outlandish 
book ; who bids ? " the boy bought it. It was a part 
of the Greek Septuagint, and he became enamored of 
Greek. Once he walked all night from Thunder Hill 
twenty miles to town, to buy a copy of the Spectator; 
and again he walked a hundred miles to construe Greek 
with an expert. His heart warmed towards the Indians. 
When he was grown, the Lenni Lenape named him 
" Wegh-wu-law-mo-end," " the man who tells the truth," 
because he reported them correctly. '' Here comes 
Charles Thomson, the man who tells the truth," was long 
a phrase of the town. Just now he was known as 
"the Sam Adams of Philadelphia "—" the life of the 
cause of liberty, they say." Just now, also, he was a 
happy man ; for, on the day Washington's party crossed 
the Chesapeake, he was married to the heiress of Har- 
riton. He says : 

i6o 



ON A LARGER STAGE 

'* I was married to my second wife on a Thursday ; on the 
next Monday I came to town to pay my respects to my wife's 
aunt and the family. Just as I alighted in Chestnut Street, 
the doorkeeper of Congress (then first met) accosted me with 
a message from them requesting my presence. Surprised at 
this and not able to divine why I was wanted, I however 
bade my servant put up the horses, and followed the messenger 
myself to the Carpenters' Hall and entered Congress. Here 
was indeed an august assembly, and deep thought and solemn 
anxiety were observable on their countenances. I walked up 
the aisle, and standing opposite to the President, I bowed 
and told him I waited his pleasure. He replied : ' Congress 
desire the favor of you, sir, to take their minutes.' I bowed 
in acquiescence and took my seat at the desk." 

That desk was his for fifteen years. He would take 
no pay. " Reticent as a sphinx," he was always punctual 
at his post of duty; always faithful in making his 
records ; always courteous, kind, and obliging ; and often 
acted as ** a peacemaker between the hotspurs " who 
from time to time appeared in that body. He could 
have written the history of the Continental Congress 
in Homeric Greek, or any other sort of Greek, but he 
wrote it not at all. On the contrary, this admirable 
man — tall, thin, erect, and in old age notably snowy, 
with locks to his shoulders — who spent twenty-five years 
translating the Scriptures, deliberately destroyed his 
notes of the historic drama enacted under his eye. Per- 
haps the tone of his mind was such as to set him in- 
tuitively against that species of historical small talk 
now so greatly esteemed. He was discreet ; he was con- 
scientious, and would not reveal the secrets of a Con- 
gress sitting with its head in the lion's mouth. An- 
other man's reputation was as precious to him as his 
own. " The Confidential Secretary of the Continental 
Congress " — his epitaph — is no idle alliteration ; it is a 
truth with a deep meaning. 

At the moment Thomson " bowed and took his seat," 
there were in the chamber forty-four members, from 
II i6i 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

eleven colonies. Two more delegates came in the next 
day, and finally the number was fifty-five. Peyton 
Randolph had been chosen to preside, and the commis- 
sions of the members had just been read. '' As the Pres- 
idency of Congress was given to Virginia, so the first 
memorable event of the session was the impassioned 
speech by Patrick Henry, reciting the colonial wrongs, 
the necessity of union and the preservation of the dem- 
ocratic part of the constitution. Applause was general, 
and a debate followed." Thus summarizes Hosmer, in 
his " Samuel Adams " ; but there are contemporary ref- 
erences to Henry's oratory at the opening of the session. 
Jefferson says : " Mr. Henry and Richard Henry Lee 
took at once the lead in that assembly, and by the 
high style of their eloquence were in the first days of the 
session looked up to as prinii inter pares." The debate 
followed upon a motion for a committee to prepare reg- 
ulations. Whether Congress should vote " by colonies, 
by poll, or by interests " was the chief question. John 
Adams it is who reports : 

" Mr. Henry then arose, and said this was the first General 
Congress which had ever happened ; that no former congress 
could be a precedent; that we should have occasion for more 
General Congresses, and therefore that a precedent ought to be 
established now; that it would be great injustice if a little col- 
ony should have the same weight in the councils of America 
as a great one, and that therefore he was for a committee." 

" The above very simple narrative of the action of 
Mr. Henry upon this occasion," comments Charles 
Francis Adams, " strangely contrasts with the picture 
painted by the florid imagination of Mr. Wirt, as also 
does the abstract of the speech with his idea of it." 
This critic (who a little later confuses a second-day 
speech with that of the first) assumes the finality of 
his grandfather's dry abstract, which is a mere refer- 

162 



ON A LARGER STAGE 

ence in a running summary. Charles Francis Adams is 
also manifestly unjust when in another note he says: 
" This is probably all that has been saved of the cele- 
brated speech of Patrick Henry at the opening of the 
Congress, which earned for him the national reputation 
he has ever since enjoyed/' It is true that Henry's 
first speech in Congress was not reported; but it is not 
true that the speech was the one whereby he gained 
celebrity. For had not the man's fame been abroad 
nine years or more ? But for Henry, indeed, there might 
have been no Continental Congress. Now, Thomson 
lived to be ninety-four. Though he wrote and spoke 
guardedly, he nevertheless added enough to the Phila- 
delphia annals to confirm the Virginia traditions con- 
cerning Henry's eloquence.* He left two descriptions 
of the scene. Having described his own installation as 
Secretary, he adds : 

"After a short silence, Patrick Henry arose to speak. I 
did not then know him; he was dressed in a suit of parson's 
gray, and from his appearance, I took him for a Presbyterian 
clergyman, used to haranguing the people. He observed that 
we were here met in a time and on an occasion of great 
difficulty and distress; that our public circumstances were like 
those of a man in deep embarrassment and trouble, who had 

* Henry Armitt Brown made a particular study of the Con- 
tinental Congress, examining the Philadelphia traditions con- 
cerning it. In his " Oration on the Hundredth Anniversary of 
Congress," he said of Patrick Henry : " A step in advance of 
his time, as he had ever been, he went far beyond the spirit 
of the other delegates, who, with the exception of the Adamses 
and Gadsden, did not counsel or der^'re independence. . . . 
His eloquence was one of the chief forces of the American 
Revolution — as necessary to that great cause as the intelligence 
of Franklin, the will of Samuel Adams, the pen of Thomas 
Jefferson, or the sword of Washington. In such times of a 
nation's trial there is always one voice that speaks for all. 
It echoes the spirit of the age. . . . The voice of Patrick 
Henry was the voice of America struggling for freedom." 

163 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

called his friends together to devise what was best to be 
done for his relief; — one would propose one thing, and another 
a different one, whilst perhaps a third would think of some- 
thing better suited to his unhappy circumstances, which he 
would embrace, and think no more of the rejected schemes, 
with which he would have nothing to do. I thought that this 
was very good instruction to me, with respect to the taking 
of the minutes. What Congress adopted, I committed to 
•writing; with what they rejected I had nothing further to do; 
and even this method led to some squabbles with the members 
who were desirous of having their speeches and resolutions, 
however put to rest by the majority, still preserved upon the 
minutes." 

We see why Thomson especially remembered one of 
the points in Henry's speech ; and elsewhere we receive 
through him another impression concerning it: 

" None seemed willing to break the eventful silence, until a 
grave looking member in a plain dark suit of minister's gray, 
and unpowdered wig, arose. All became fixed in attention on 
him. 

'' ' Conticuere omnes, intentique ora tenthant.' 

" Then he (Thomson) felt a sense of regret that the seeming 
country parson should so far have mistaken his talents, and 
the theatre for their display. But as he proceeded, he evinced 
such unusual force of argument, and such novel and im- 
passioned eloquence, as soon electrified the house. Then the 
excited inquiry passed from man to man, Who is it? Who 
is it? The answer from the few who knew him was, It is 
Patrick Henry ! 

" ' Ille regit dictis amnios et pecfora mulcet' " 

In spite of the intrusive Latin, how like our Patrick 
of the Virginia forum — this grave orator who made 
strangers ashamed of him in his halting approach to 
his subject, and by and by caused them to look at each 
other and whisper, *' Who is it?" Such was his way. 

164 



ON A LARGER STAGE 

He never sought to storm his auditory, but on great 
occasions his effects were cumulative — he could elec- 
trify and overpower. Richard K. Betts, venerable cus- 
todian of the traditions of the Carpenters' Company, 
says of this speech : 

" Patrick Henry slowly rose in a far off part of the hall 
and hesitatingly broke the silence. He calmly reviewed the 
wrongs of his country, until warming with his subject, his 
cheeks glowed, his eye flashed, and his voice, rich and strong, 
rang through and filled the hall." 

There is warrant for assuming that Henry was equally 
eloquent in his speech of the succeeding day. It was 
a day of excitement and solemnity. On the strength 
of a rumor that Boston had been bombarded, muffled 
bells sounded, and in the streets, as Congress met, the 
cry " War ! war ! " was heard. What this meant to the 
men who knew themselves to be the custodians of the 
liberties of the people along the whole continental shore, 
from Nova Scotia to Florida, we can understand even 
now ; for though we are far away from them in point 
of time, we are near to them in sympathy. They were 
still considering how the colonies should vote. In the 
debate, Henry said: 

" Government is dissolved. Fleets and armies and the 
present state of things show that government is dissolved. 
Where are your landmarks, your boundaries of colonies? We 
are in a state of nature, sir. I did propose that a scale should 
be laid down : that part of North America which was once 
Massachusetts Bay, and that part which was once Virginia, 
ought to be considered as having a weight. Will not people 
complain [that] ten thousand Virginians have not outweighed 
one thousand others? I will submit, however; I am deter- 
mined to submit, if I am overruled. ... I hope future 
ages will quote our proceedings with applause. ... It is 
one of the great duties of the democratical part of the con- 
stitution to keep itself pure. . . . It is known in my prov- 

165 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

ince that some other colonies are not so numerous or rich 
as they are. [But] I am for giving all the satisfaction in my 
power. The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, 
New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a 
Virginian, but an American." 

Coming to us in such fragmentary and disjointed 
shape, these jerky passages give only an echo of Henry's 
speeches. The parts do not dovetail well. All but a few 
of the words are lost — all save a few of the ideas, 
yet the results are evident. And, knowing what we do 
of Henry's character, we may conclude that he was 
chiefly concerned about results. He would not have 
been human if he had not sought to sustain his repu- 
tation as a good speaker; and he would not have been 
Henry if he had not endeavored much more earnestly 
to sustain his reputation as a man of sense. Being 
a man of sense, he probably saw that it was no time for 
flam.ing oratory ; that Congress had met to deliberate, 
to knit together diverse interests, to deal delicately with 
a complex and most difficult situation, and finally to 
carry forward a general Revolution affecting the wel- 
fare of three millions of people. This " very d — 1 in 
politics," this " son of thunder," had no wish to " shake 
the Senate " simply for the purpose of exhibiting his own 
oratorical excellence. His wish was that Congress 
should act so justly and sagaciously as to win the ap- 
proval of patriots everywhere. " I go upon the sup- 
position that government is at an end," said he. " All 
distinctions are thrown down. All America is thrown 
into one mass. We must aim at the minutiae of recti^- 
tude." 

By a politic stroke on this same exciting second day, 
Samuel Adams contrived that religious differences 
should be sunk ; and next morning " Parson " Duche, 
who turned Tory in the end, appeared in his clerical 
robes and solemnized the proceedings. " A prayer which 

i66 



ON A LARGER STAGE 

he gave as his own composition," says Adams, '' was 
as pertinent, as affectionate, as subHme, as devout, as I 
ever heard offered up to Heaven." 

Tory marplots, hoping for discord, could not have 
chosen a surer way of provoking it than by exciting the 
provincial spirit of the members. Hence the mischief of 
the question: Should a major colony and a minor 
colony have an equal voice in the Congress? Henry 
must have known that he risked much when he cried : 
" I am not a Virginian, but an American." He knew 
how that would sound in certain ears at home. He knew 
that what was being said and done in Philadelphia 
would be talked over down country, and he knew that 
the people were slow to ratify dubious proceedings. 
By the bent of his mind he glanced ahead. He doubt- 
less flashed a look into the future and foresaw other 
Congresses, other occasions when members would say: 
" Well, did we not do so and so at our first meeting? " 
Besides, he disliked to go against his own strong sense 
of fair play ; and there is no question that his mind 
would have been eased if some more equitable method 
of voting had been agreed upon. However, he was ready 
to submit when Congress decided that, for the time 
being, the vote of each colony should count as " one 
voice." 

The initial difficulty over. Congress set to work me- 
thodically, and kept at it for seven weeks. One of the 
most stirring debates was over the inflammatory re- 
solves adopted by towns in the Massachusetts county of 
Suffolk and sent South by Paul Revere, riding express. 
It was practically a war test. No record exists of 
Henry's part in the debate, but about this time Silas 
Deane wrote to his wife : 

" Mr. Henry ... is the compleatest speaker I ever heard. 
If his future speeches are equal to the small samples he has 
hitherto given us, they will be worth preserving; but in a 

167 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

letter I can give you no idea of the music of his voice, or the 
high wrought yet natural elegance of his style and manner. 
Col. Lee is said to be his rival in eloquence, and in Virginia 
and to the Southward they are styled the Demosthenes and 
Cicero of America. God grant they may not, like them, plead 
in vain for the liberties of their country ! These last gentlemen 
are now in full life, perhaps near fifty, and have made the 
constitution of Great Britain and America their capital study 
ever since the late troubles between them have arisen." 

Congress voted to stand by Massachusetts, thus taking 
upon the whole continent the warlike quarrel of a part. 
" The esteem, the affection, the admiration for the 
people of Boston and Massachusetts," wrote John 
Adams to his wife, *' and the fixed determination that 
they should be supported, were enough to melt a heart 
of stone. I saw the tears, gush into the eyes of the old, 
grave, pacific Quakers of Pennsylvania." 

Yet some of the Quakers were exerting themselves 
to win Congress away from the course it was taking. 
Stratagems social and stratagems political were prac- 
tised. " I shall be killed with kindness in this place," 
wrote Adams. " We go to Congress at nine, and 
there we stay, most earnestly engaged in debates upon 
the most abstruse mysteries of state, until three in the 
afternoon ; then we adjourn, and go to dine with some of 
the nobles of Pennsylvania at four o'clock, and feast 
upon ten thousand delicacies, and sit drinking Madeira, 
Claret, and Burgundy till six or seven, and then go home, 
fatigued to death with business, company, and care." 
Again he says : " I am wearied to death with the life 
I lead. The business of the Congress is tedious beyond 
expression. This assembly is like no other that ever 
existed. Every man in it is a great man, an orator, a 
critic, a statesman ; and, therefore, every man upon every 
question must show his oratory, his criticism, and his 
political abilities." 

Nevertheless, Congress got along with a sureness and 

i68 



ON A LARGER STAGE 

rapidity little short of phenomenal. It adopted a Declar- 
ation of Rights — the forerunner of the Declaration of 
Independence ; a petition to the King ; an address to the 
people of Canada ; and a memorial to the people of 
British North America. It debated and rejected Gal- 
loway's Tory plan for a Colonial Union, with a Pres- 
ident-General to be appointed by the King and a 
Grand Council to be chosen by the thirteen assemblies. 
But its most important work was to devise and 
adopt a non-importation, non-consumption, and non- 
exportation agreement. Henry opposed the setting of 
too early a date with respect to the latter. " We 
don't mean to hurt even our rascals, if we have 
any," said he. " I move that December be inserted 
instead of November." His opposition to the Galloway 
scheme brought him into conflict with the notable John 
Jay, then under thirty — tall, thin, dark-eyed, with aqui- 
line nose and a colorless face lighted up with amiability. 
Jay wrote the address to the people of Great Britain, 
and therein attested his skill in statecraft, law, and virile 
composition ; but he took sides against Henry in con- 
sidering the Galloway plan. Under it, said Henry, " we 
shall liberate our constituents from a corrupt House of 
Commons, but throw them into the arms of an American 
Legislature that may be bribed by that nation which 
avows, in the face of the world, that bribery is a part 
of her system of government. Before we are obliged 
to pay taxes as they do, let us be as free as they are; 
let us have our trade open with all the world. We are 
not to consent to be governed by the representatives of 
representatives." 

This Galloway measure was defeated by but one 
vote. *' The action of Congress on it," thinks William 
Wirt Henry, " constitutes a crisis in the history of 
America." Had it passed, Galloway, who subsequently-- 
upon receipt of a halter coiled in a box — fled the prov- 

169 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

ince, would not have returned to Philadelphia, under 
cover of Sir William Howe's army, and played the rene- 
gade among his former neighbors. But at this time, 
let us remember, only a few men, Henry among them, 
smelt the taint upon the bland and accomplished Tory 
politician and pamphleteer. Galloway very nearly 
smothered the Republic at its birth. 

And now we come to a curious matter with respect 
to Henry and this first Congress. He served on various 
committees, including that which prepared the address 
to King George. Why he should have been placed 
upon this committee is hard to understand, for of all 
men he was the least likely to utter obsequious senti- 
ments or seek to placate ruffled royalty. The first report 
made by the committee was sent back because of its 
" asperity." Some of this " asperity " may have been 
due to Henry's talk in committee, but the draft of the 
address is said to have been made by Richard Henry Lee, 
whose labors in Congress were manifold. About this 
time Dickinson became a member, and it was he who 
rewrote the address as adopted. The speculative mind 
sees many piquant possibilities in this situation. Per- 
haps some one inimical to Henry wished it to be told 
among the Virginia democrats that their leader had 
become so infected by the Proprietary poisons of Penn- 
sylvania as to write to the King in apology for certain 
remarks uttered in the House of Burgesses. But the 
most inviting possibility refers to Dickinson. We may 
assume that Henry — a marked man, as London rumor 
had it — was unwilling to sink his spirit. Dickinson, 
on the contrary, was ready and eager to sharpen a fresh 
quill and address his Majesty with all the elegant genu- 
flections of a refined rhetorician. Who knows but that 
the sagacious Samuel Adams and the sagacious Patrick 
Henry were playing politics here? According to Gal- 
loway : " While the two parties in Congress remained 

170 



ON A LARGER STAGE 

thus during three weeks on an equal balance, the republi- 
cans were calling to their assistance the aid of their 
factions without. They were under the management 
of Samuel Adams. ... He eats little, drinks little, 
sleeps little, thinks much, and is most decisive and in- 
defatigable in the pursuit of his objects. It was this man 
who, by his superior application, managed at once the 
faction in Congress at Philadelphia and the factions 
in New England." It was Adams who caused Warren 
in Boston to push through the Suffolk resolves, and it 
was he who caused them to be brought to Congress for 
approval. Viewed in this light, it is allowable to think 
that Adams and Henry so managed the address to the 
King as to gain a point for America. They understood 
how influential Dickinson was ; they hoped to win him 
over, with some of his friends ; and they realized that he 
would be hugely flattered personally if invited by Con- 
gress to flatter the King. 

Samuel Chase, of Maryland, who is described by 
Dr. Benjamin Rush as " a bold declaimer with slender 
reasoning powers," was so affected by the oratory at 
the opening of the Congress that he walked across the 
chamber to his colleague's seat and exclaimed : '* We 
might as well go home; we are not able to legislate 
with these men." Later he amended his remark : " Well, 
after all, I find these are but men — and, in mere matters 
of business, very common men." In keeping with this 
thought was Jefferson's reminiscent echo of it, when he 
wrote to Wirt that Henry lapsed from his high plane 
during the session and suffered in repute because of the 
incident of the address to the King. Now, so long and 
stormy w^as Jefferson's own public life, and so varied 
were his mental activities, that one could not expect 
his memory to serve him without slips and tricks. That 
it played him tricks he himself admits. Writing, in his 
" Autobiography," of another matter, he confesses thus : 

171 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

" This idea, after a lapse of twenty-six years, had so 
insinuated itself into my mind that I committed it to 
paper without the least suspicion of error." Jefferson 
did not attend the First Congress. His insinuation that 
Henry's work was inefficient had no warrant in fact. 
He misled Wirt, who misapprehended the whole matter, 
and thereupon proceeded to moralize on the evil results 
of neglecting one's books when one is at school. Poor 
Patrick is again held up, not exactly as a horrible ex- 
ample, but as the next thing to it. 

Chase, for his part, was justified in concluding that 
a man might be a wretched speaker, yet live to legislate 
in company with the Virginians. " Lee, Henry, and 
Hooper are the orators," said Adams ; as for the states- 
men in the Congress, they were more numerous than 
Adams would admit when he wrote to his wife : '' Fifty 
gentlemen, meeting together, all strangers, are not ac- 
quainted with each other's language, ideas, views, 
designs. They are therefore jealous of each other — 
fearful, timid, skittish." We have seen that two of these 
men — Samuel Adams and Henry — subdued themselves 
at the start. If they had been shallow characters — if 
they had been dominated by selfish ambition, each would 
have contrived to organize a following ; each would have 
sought to rise at the expense of the cause. If they had 
been smaller men, they would have antagonized each 
other. So far from this, they became warm friends. 
It is not allowable to assume outright that there was an 
understanding between them, but such an assumption 
would have a better basis than Wirt's assumption 
that Henry was derelict in committee work, and that 
he was no w^riter. As heretofore intimated, one of the 
best bits of data with respect to Henry is Judge Tucker's 
telling allusion to his " peculiar smile." We can fre- 
quently see it influencing such of his muscles as had 
to do with his lips, cheeks, and chin. Very often we 

172 



ON A LARGER STAGE 

think of this sceptical smile, and we think of it now- 
imagining how it would have been provoked if Henry 
had lived to read the charge that he had not the gumption 
or the scholarship to address the King. All the com- 
ities and epistolary courtesies were well understood by 
Henry, and he knew the political requirements of the 
occasion. Why, therefore, should he have been slack 
in duty or endeavor — why, indeed, unless, with Sam 
Adams, he had a purpose? As for composition, Henry 
was a clear, forceful, and convincing writer. At times 
there was lack of flexibility; his style was never florid. 
His letters show a sensible directness. Moreover, an 
essay of his, touching Virginia economics, is logical, 
direct, and lucid. That he was a master of style, like 
Dickinson, or Jay, or Richard Henry Lee, no one would 
urge ; but his ability to write well is beyond doubt. 

Throughout the session Henry must have been a busy 
man. A wide range of knowledge was necessary in 
developing the resolves and declarations and shaping 
the course of revolt. Numberless intercolonial and in- 
ternational facts were digested in the committees, and 
accuracy of statement was attained only through search- 
ing inquiry. Henry was on the committee that reported 
upon British statutes affecting colonial trade — no easy 
task. It is not pretended that he was better informed 
than his associates, nor even that he was as well informed 
as some of them on various points. He was no delver. 
He had little useless knowledge. There was in Phila- 
delphia at that time one George Bryan — later President 
of the Supreme Executive Council — who was supposed 
to know everything. A wag bet that Bryan could name, 
off-hand, the town-crier of Bergen-op-Zoom. Henry 
would have been eclipsed by Bryan ; nevertheless, he 
held his own in Congress. Finally, the papers of this 
body leave one under the impression that they were 
supervised by a master. Reading the first drafts of 

173 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

the documents and then the revised declarations and 
resolves, we seem to see behind the pen that made the 
erasures and interpolations the figure of an old man, 
a wise man, a patriotic man, a benign genius. Who 
was he? There was no such v^orthy. The wisdom 
was that conjoint wisdom so generously lauded by 
Camden and Chatham. To the sum of this wisdom, as 
the records show, Henry contributed a goodly share. 

Since John Adams is still in our foreground, it 
would seem to be appropriate here to give his matured 
opinion of Henry, as expressed in a letter to Wirt, in 
1818. He wrote : *' From personal acquaintance, per- 
haps I might say a friendship, with Mr. Henry of more 
than thirty years, and from all that I have heard or 
read of him, I have always considered him a gentleman 
of deep reflection, keen sagacity, clear foresight, daring 
enterprise, inflexible intrepidity, and untainted integrity, 
with an ardent zeal for the liberties, the honor, and the 
felicity of his country and his species." 

When Henry was asked by a Hanover neighbor 
whom he esteemed the greatest man in the First Con- 
gress, he is said to have replied : " Rutledge, if you speak 
of eloquence, is by far the greatest orator, but Colonel 
Washington, who has no pretensions to eloquence, is 
a man of more solid judgment and information than 
any man on that floor." It was John, not Edward, 
Rutledge whom Henry had in mind. Of Edward, the 
censorious Adams wrote : 



" Rutledge is a very uncouth and ungraceful speaker ; fie 
shrugs his shoulders, distorts his body, nods and wriggles with 
his head, and looks about with his eyes from side to side, and 
speaks through his nose as the Yankees sing." Again : " Young 
Ned Rutledge is a perfect Bob-o-Lincoln — a swallow, a spar- 
row, a peacock ; excessively vain, excessively weak, and ex- 
cessively variable and unsteady; jejune, inane, puerile." . . . 
" His brother John dodges his head, too, rather disagreeably, 

174 



ON A LARGER STAGE 

and both of them spout out their language in a rough and rapid 
torrent, but without much force or effect." 

Evidently Adams permitted his political dislike of 
the Rutledges to become a personal matter. Not so 
Henry, who was at least generous in praising the ora- 
torical qualities of a man with whom he differed on 
public questions. One of the entries in Adams' " Diary " 
reads : 

" Spent the evening with Mr. Henry at his lodgings, consult- 
ing about a petition to the King. Henry said he had no public 
education ; at fifteen he read Virgil and Livy, and had not 
looked into a Latin book since. His father left him at that 
age [sic], and he has been struggling through life ever since. 
He has high notions, talks about exalted minds, etc. He has 
a horrid opinion of Galloway, Jay, and the Rutledges. Their 
system, he says, would ruin the cause of America. He is very 
impatient, to see such fellows, and not be at liberty to describe 
them in their true colors." 

Henry is seen over the diarist's shoulder at Judge 
Willing's, Dr. Cadwalader's, and other houses where 
they dined : " A most sinful feast again ! everything 
which could delight the eye or allure the taste; curds 
and creams, jellies, sweetmeats of various sorts, twenty 
sorts of tarts, fools, trifles, floating islands, whipped 
sillabubs, etc., etc." Even at a " plain but pretty " 
Quakeress's, with her thees and thous, " beer, porter, 
punch, and wine " were to be had. It was a time when 
a guest was confronted with " a bowl of fine Lemon 
Punch, big enough to have Swimm'd half a dozen of 
young geese." Occasionally the feasters were in great 
parties. In mid-September — the week of the departure 
of the Royal Irish, moving' off towards Boston with 
tap of drum — Congress was entertained at a banquet 
in the State House, five hundred gentlemen partici- 
pating. On the 20th of October, the Assembly gave a 

175 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

banquet to the delegates, both bodies, to the number 
of one hundred, sitting down together. This final feast 
was at the City Tavern. Never had mine host, Daniel 
Smith, a more glorious company under his roof. His 
long room was crowded. Adams describes it as " a 
most elegant entertainment." " A sentiment was given," 
says he : " * May the sword of the parent never be stained 
with the blood of her children.' Two or three broad- 
brims over against me at table said : ' This is not a toast, 
but a prayer ; come, let us join in it ! ' And they took 
their glasses accordingly." 

But it is time to have done with the good old gossipy 
diarist, who says he was *' avoided like a man infected 
with the Leprosy " because he favored independence, 
but who confesses that he " drank punch and ate dried 
smoked sprats," and consumed oceans of syllabub in 
conjunction with roast duck. 

Once more the members of the First Congress met 
at the City Tavern — this time to say farewell. It was 
on tlie evening of the 26th of October. Thomson, him- 
self a sterling soul, said of them that they were " the 
purest and ablest patriots he had ever known." " 28, 
Friday," writes the ex-Leper who had been cured with 
syllabub, " took our departure, in a very great rain, from 
the happy, the peaceful, the elegant, the hospitable and 
polite city of Philadelphia." 



176 



IX 



" WE MUST FIGHT 



Henry, at thirty-nine, was already nearing the top- 
notch of his greatness. Still fresh to fame, his powers 
matured, his zeal under discipline, his popularity una- 
bated, he may now be regarded as at his strongest and 
best. Whether viewed as a far-seeing statesman, as an 
orator, or as a patriot, he stands out more admirably at 
this period of his career than at any other. His polit- 
ical prescience is unquestioned. He was the prophet 
of Independence long before the Declaration, and at 
least a year before he deemed its open advocacy politic. 
On this point, Nathaniel Pope wrote to Wirt: 

" I am informed by Colonel John Overton that, before 
one drop of blood was shed in our contest with Great 
Britain, he was at Colonel Samuel Overton's in company 
with Mr. Henry, Colonel Morris, John Hawkins, and Colonel 
Samuel Overton, when the last mentioned gentleman asked 
Mr. Henry * whether he supposed Great Britain would drive 
her colonies to extremities? And if she should, what he 
thought would be the issue of the war?' When Mr. Henry, 
after looking around to see who was present, expressed 
himself confidentially to the company in the following manner : 
* She will drive us to extremities — no accommodation will 
take place — hostilities will soon commence — and a desperate 
and bloody touch it will be.' * But,' said Colonel Samuel 
Overton, ' do you think, Mr. Henry, that an infant nation, as 
we are, without discipline, arms, ammunition, ships of war, 
or money to procure them — do you think it possible, thus 
circumstanced, to oppose successfully the fleets and armies 
of Great Britain?' 'I will be candid with you,' replied Mr. 
Henry. ' I doubt whether we shall be able, alone, to cope with 
so powerful a nation. But,' he continued (rising from his 
chair, with great animation), 'where is France? Where is 
Spain? Where is Holland? — the natural enemies of Great 

12 177 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Britain; where Avill the}^ be all this while? Do yon suppose 
they will stand by, idle and indifferent spectators to the 
contest? Will Louis the XVI be asleep all this while? 
Believe me, no. When Louis the XVI shall be satisfied by 
our serious opposition, and our Declaration of Independence, 
that all prospect of reconciliation is gone, then, and not till 
then, will he furnish us with arms, ammunition, and clothing; 
and not with these only, but he will send his fleet and armies 
to fight our battles for us ; he will form with us a treaty 
offensive and defensive against our unnatural mother. Spain 
and Holland will join the confederation. Our independence 
will be established, and we shall take our stand among the 
nations of the earth ! ' Here he ceased ; and Colonel John 
Overton says at the word ' independence,' the company appeared 
to be startled ; for they had never before heard anything of 
the kind even suggested." 

Pope^s statement was accepted in his own day and 
remains unchallenged to this. Henry knew that he was 
in advance of most men on the subject of independence, 
and when in public kept his tongue about it. He was 
aware that Congress, though doubtful of the issue, was 
deluding itself in the hope of peace. He himself had 
no such expectation. He foresaw ; and, foreseeing, 
waited. 

" In the Congress of 1774," wrote John Adams, 
" there was not one member, except Patrick Henry, 
who appeared to me sensible of the precipice, or rather, 
the pinnacle on which he stood, and had candor and 
courage enough to acknowledge it." Again Adams 
wrote : 

" When Congress had finished their business, as they 
thought, in the autumn of 1774, I had with Mr. Henry, before 
we took leave of each other, some familiar conversation, in 
which I expressed a full conviction that our resolves, declara- 
tions of rights, enumeration of wrongs, petitions, remonstrances, 
and addresses, associations and non-importation agreements, 
however they might be expected by the people in America 
and however necessary to cement the union of the colonies, 
would be but waste paper in England. Mr. Henry said 

178 



WE MUST FIGHT 

they might make some impression among the people of Eng- 
land, but agreed with me that they would be totally lost upon 
the Government. I had but just received a short and hasty 
letter, written to me by Major Joseph Hawley, of North- 
ampton, containing ' a few broken hints,' as he called them, 
of what he thought was proper to be done, and concluding 
[Adams should have said " beginning "] with these words : 
' After all, we must fight.' This letter I read to Mr. Henry, 
who listened with great attention ; and as soon as I had pro- 
nounced the words, ' After all, we must fight,' he raised his 
head, and with an energy and vehemence that I can never 
forget broke out with, ' By G — d, I am of that man's mind.' 
I put the letter into his hand, and when he had read it, he 
returned it to me with an equally solemn asseveration, that 
he agreed entirely in opinion with the writer. . . . The 
other delegates from Virginia returned to their State, in 
full confidence that all our grievances could be redressed. 
The last words that Richard Henry Lee said to me, when we 
parted, were, * We shall infallibly carry all our points ; you 
will be completely relieved ; all the offensive acts will be 
repealed ; the army and fleet will be recalled, and Britain will 
give up her foolish project.' 

" Washington only was in doubt. In private he joined with 
those who advocated a non-exportation as well as a non-im- 
portation agreement. With both he thought we should prevail ; 
without either he thought it doubtful. Henry was clear in one 
opinion, Richard Henry Lee in an opposite opinion, and 
Washington doubted between the two. Henry, however, 
appeared in the end to be exactly in the right." 

This was in October. November found Henry back 
in Virginia, organizing the local soldiery. No courts 
were sitting ; no Assembly had been called ; Dunmore 
was still on the border, and the colony was in distress. 
Considering his recent labors, Henry might well have 
remained a while inactive. Indeed, sky, trees, and 
sedgy fields were a pleasant sight at " Scotchtown " 
plantation house in autumn. There was a charm in 
the view looking north from the stone-flagged porch ; 
and, of a morning, deer could be seen at the edge of 
the forest. But there was no allurement in these things 

179 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

for Henry. He could not dismiss the thought of Boston 
under the Hon's paw. '' I am an American," he had 
said, in all solemnity ; and that other expression, which 
meant so much, clung like a mental burr. '' We must 
fight," old Hawley had concluded ; and old Hawley 
knew. 

Here before us is a much-thumbed letter, written 
more than a century ago by Charles Dabney, a Hanover 
man. who says : 

" Soon after Mr. Patrick Henry's return from the First 
Congress, notice was given through his means to the militia 
of Hanover, to attend at Mr. Smith's tavern (Merry Oaks) 
in the neighborhood of Hanover Court-house, where he wished 
to communicate something to them of great importance. 
Accordingly a considerable number of the younger part of 
the militia attended, and he addressed them in a very animated 
speech, pointing out the necessity of our having recourse to 
arms in defence of our rights, and recommending in strong 
terms that we should immediately form ourselves into a 
volunteer company." 

By " strong terms " we take it that Henry put a lively 
interpretation upon the words of Congress, which body 
had admonished the people to be " in all respects pre- 
pared for every emergency." At any rate, the Independ- 
ent Company of Hanover was formed at Merry Oaks, 
and about the same time the County Committee, which 
was to execute the plans of Congress, came into being. 
Such committees were organized in the other counties 
of Virginia ; but it is not true that soldiers were enlisted 
in all of them, as Dunmore asserted at Christmas, and 
as Rives repeated when he took Wirt to task for over- 
stating the apathetic conditions prevailing in the colony 
prior to Henry's tremendous outburst in St. John's 
Church, on the 23d of March, 1775. Wirt felt that 
he held a brief for Henry ; he had but lately permitted 
Jefferson's shadow to fall upon his pages; and the 

180 



WE MUST FIGHT 

truth is that he did lay too much stress upon the diffi- 
culties of his hero, thereby magnifying the achievement 
in St. John's. But it was rhetorical stress purely. A 
microscopic study of the records demonstrates Vir- 
ginia's unarmed condition at that time. In not more 
than seven counties had minute-men been enrolled. 
This whole fall and winter the Revolution hung fire. 
Not that the Sons of Liberty were idle. Not that 
advanced Whigs anywhere had ceased to feel concern. 
Certainly not that there was lack of preparation in New 
England, in the Middle Colonies, and in the Carolinas. 
Peter Force, in his " American Archives," produces 
pages of evidence that the people were wide awake. 
He presents hundreds of letters, addresses, memorials, 
handbills, reports of meetings, pledges, recantations, 
and patriotic resolves — colony, county, and town. In a 
small way, there were *' many hot and fiirious proceed- 
ings." In lieu of actual government, the people man- 
aged affairs. It was the reign of the Committee. But 
the fact remains that most men did not expect the 
" desperate and bloody touch " foretold by Henry. 
They had freighted with their hopes the ship that sailed 
with what we may now call the ultimatum of Congress. 
All sentiment aside, they could not think it possible 
that a rational people like the English would permit 
the destruction of a vast trade, and so they did not 
believe that the worst would come to the worst. If 
they had known what was happening over-sea, they 
would have disillusionized themselves most precipi- 
tately. But they did not know. By order of the House 
of Commons, Tom Paine's hated " Crisis " had been 
*' burnt by the common hangman " at the Royal Ex- 
change, but of this and similar incidents they were 
ignorant. They were unaware of the King's uncom- 
promising words in Cabinet Council on the 12th of 
January ; of Chatham's efforts in their behalf on the 

181 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

20th ; and of Burke's glorious plea on the 226. of March. 
Master alike of argument and eloquence, Burke fought 
the enemies of America point by point, hour after hour, 
as if his own life were at stake in the combat, and he 
went down only because they overwhelmed him with 
numbers. To every argument, their answer was like 
that of the man in Lord Camden's parallel : " Sir, here 
is my sword ! " 

There is a subject for some poet in the fact that 
Henry's greatest oration, on the 23d of March, was 
almost simultaneous in its delivery with that of Burke. 
Three thousand miles apart, one genius ceased but a 
few hours before the other began. Their theme was 
the same. If it be that their voices sounded aloft where 
Destiny sits, how plain must it have appeared in high 
quarters that a crisis had come upon the world, mark- 
ing an extraordinary turn, an upheaval, the incoming of 
an era fruitful of change, not in one land alone, but in 
many lands. 

5 Uninformed as they were with respect to British 
i, developments since Christmas, the members of the 
Second Revolutionary Convention of Virginia met in 
Richmond on the 20th of March. Henry and Syme 
represented the freeholders of Hanover. All told, 
sixty-one counties and three corporations sent dele- 
gates, who numbered one hundred and twenty. Each 
of these men was in some degree committed to the 
patriot cause. But many were of the opinion that 
there would be no war. They had been lulled into a 
feeling of security by the latest London news item, 
which read : '' The buzz at Court is that all the acts 
will be repealed, except the Admiralty and Declaratory, 
and that North and Dartmouth will be replaced by 
Gower and Hillsborough." The Convention sat for 
seven days. It approved of what Congress had done; 
thanked the Virginia deputies ; reappointed them ; took 

182 



WE MUST FIGHT 

steps to curb the royal power in the matter of colony 
land, and transacted other public business. 

But the great event of the week had to do with the 
arming of the colony. Consideration of this prime and 
significant matter was precipitated on Thursday, the 
23d, by Henry and Lee, who resented, or affected to 
resent, an adulatory phrase in a proposed resolution 
of thanks to the Assembly of the Island of Jamaica. 
The Jamaica Assem.bly, sympathizing with the Ameri- 
cans, had sent an address to the King; and, in the 
resolution of thanks to the West Indians, it was said 
that the Virginians ardently wished to see '* a speedy 
return to those halcyon days when we lived a happy 
people." 

Here was Henry's opportunity. At once he arose, 
and offered an amendment to the Jamaica resolutions 
in the following words : 

" Resolved, That a well-regulated militia, composed of gentle- 
men and yeomen, is the natural strength and only security of 
a free government ; that such a militia in this colony would 
forever render it unnecessary for the mother country to keep 
among us, for the purpose of our defence, any standing army 
of mercenary forces, always subversive of the quiet and 
dangerous to the liberties of the people, and would obviate the 
necessity of taxing us for their support. 

''Resolved, That the establishment of such a militia is at 
this time peculiarly necessary, by the state of our laws for the 
protection and defence of the country, some of which have 
already expired, and others will shortly do so ; and that the 
known remissness of the Government in calling us together 
in a legislative capacity renders it too insecure, in this time 
of danger and distress, to rely that opportunity will be given 
of renewing them in general assembly, or making any pro- 
vision to secure our inestimable rights and liberties from 
those further violations with which they are threatened. 

" Resolved, therefore, That this colony be immediately put 
into a posture of defence ; and that ... be a committee 
to prepare a plan for embodying, arming, and disciplining such 
a number of men as may be sufficient for that purpose." 

183 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Now, the sting of this excellent scorpion was in its 
tail. No one could be deeply moved by the ironical and 
argumentative first resolution. Indeed, while it was 
being read, many members must have recognized it as 
a paraphrase of the chief of fourteen patriotic resolves 
adopted at Annapolis on the 8th of December preced- 
ing. Had not Washington copied it for use at the 
Fairfax County Convention? Nor was there much to 
cavil at in Henry's second resolve. But the third, as 
it seems to us, pointed straight towards war. 

Moses Coit Tyler does not think that the resolutions 
in themselves were sufficiently warlike to provoke such 
opposition as that which followed. We are told by 
Judge St. George Tucker that there was " an animated 
debate, in which Colonel Richard Bland, Mr. Nicholas, 
the treasurer, and I think Colonel Harrison, of Berke- 
ley, and Mr. Pendleton, were opposed to the resolu- 
tion, as conceiving it to be premature." In this " cluster 
of names," Dr. Tyler shrewdly — perhaps too shrewdly 
— finds " some clew to the secret of their opposition. 
It was an opposition to Patrick Henry himself, and as 
far as possible to any measure of which he should be 
the leading champion." Pendleton was in rivalry with 
Henry, and there were other men in St. John's that 
day who would have profited personally by his discom- 
fiture. However, when all is said on this score, it 
remains but a bit of plausible speculation. 

Somewhat speculative, too, is Dr. Tyler's further 
suggestion that Henry probably interpreted the reso- 
lutions when he offered them. '* What,^' he asks, 
" was that interpretation ? In the true answer to th ' 
question, no doubt, lies the secret of the resistan 
which his motion encountered. For, down to th 
day, no public body in America, and no public ma 
had openly spoken of war with Great Britain in a 
more decisive way than as a thing highly probab 

184 



WE MUST FIGHT 

indeed, but not inevitable. Others had said, ' The war 
must come, and will come — unless certain things are 
done.' Patrick Henry, brushing away every prefix 
or suffix of uncertainty, every half-despairing * if,' 
every fragile and pathetic ' unless,' exclaimed, in the 
hearing of all men : * Why talk of things being now 
done which can avert the war? Such things will not 
be done. The war is coming: it has come already.' 
Accordingly, other conventions in the colonies, in adopt- 
ing similar resolutions, had merely announced the prob- 
ability of war. Patrick Henry would have this con- 
vention, by adopting his resolutions, virtually declare 
war itself. In this alone, it is apparent, consisted the 
real priority and offensiveness of Patrick Henry's posi- 
tion as a revolutionary statesman on the 23d of March, 
1775. In this alone were his resolutions ' premature.' 
. . . Patrick Henry demanded of the people of Vir- 
ginia that they should treat all further talk of peace 
as mere prattle ; that they should seize the actual situ- 
ation by a bold grasp of it in front ; that, looking upon 
the war as a fact, they should instantly proceed to get 
ready for it. And therein, once more, in revolutionary 
ideas, was Patrick Henry one full step in advance of 
his contemporaries. Therein, once more, did he justify 
the reluctant praise of Jefferson, who was a member 
of that convention, and who, nearly fifty years after- 
wards, said concerning Patrick Henry to a great states- 
man from Massachusetts : ' After all, it must be 
allowed that he was our leader in the measures of the 
Revolution in Virginia, and in that respect more is 
due to him than to any other person. . . . He left 
us all far behind.' " 

One cannot but endorse Dr. Tyler's accurate and 
admirable survey of Henry's attitude, whatever one 
may think of his prior assumption that Virginia was 
awake before Henry awoke her. Admitted that Wirt 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

somewhat overstates the dubiety, the unreadmess, and 
the obstructive spirit of the *' peace party," Dr. Tyler 
as certainly understates that party's antagonism to the 
resolutions. Wirt uses the art of contrast ; Tyler 
argues; and neither of them does justice to the scene 
in St. John's. In fine, it is impossible to do justice to 
it. With respect to the opposition, it is true that 
Washington was not temporizing ; it is true that Richard 
Henry Lee was no longer temporizing; but it is equally 
true that many able, earnest, and steadfast Virginians 
had permitted themselves to become downright tem- 
porizers. War almost invariably comes as a surprise — 
a shock. People believe in it only when they hear the 
roar. Virginia, as her guardians well knew, was unpre- 
pared for war. But why talk of enrolments, musters, 
cannon, rifles, cartouch-boxes, and saltpetre? Spring 
was at hand ; shad were running in the rivers, and lo ! 
yonder upon the sea were London sails — no doubt 
bringing news of reconciliation. 

As for a preliminary speech by Henry, he may or 
may not have made one. He did not need to make 
it. No man was a better actor. By his very manner 
of offering the resolutions — by his tone, by his empha- 
sis, by his look, he could have said : ^' After all, we 
must fight ! " His challenge to the " peace party " may 
have been expressed in so slight a thing as a bow, a 
gesture. Pendleton, Bland, Nicholas, and all his oppo- 
nents knew him and knew his w^ays. His friends and 
followers understood him. They needed no words from 
him to comprehend that he was up in arms. 

On that day, fortunately for us. Judge John Tyler, 
Judge St. George Tucker, and John Roane were within 
hearing of Henry when he spoke in behalf of his reso- 
lutions. We say " fortunately," since otherwise Wirt's 
account of the speech might be deemed apocryphal. 
Wirt himself intimated that Burk's summary of the 

i86 



WE AlUST FIGHT 

Stamp Act speech was '' apocryphal " ; and it would be 
doubly distressing if we should be obliged to accept 
the amiable Grigsby's opinion that much of Wirt's 
version of the speech in St. John's was out of Wirt's 
own head. But Grigsby was hardly right in this par- 
ticular matter. Though Wirt did not give his source as 
to the text of the speech, here is a supporting chain for 
him made up of good sound links : 

First, we know that Nathaniel Pope wrote to Wirt : 
" You have already received in detail the celebrated 
speech delivered in the convention held in the church 
in Richmond, in 1775, in favor of taking up arms 
against Great Britain." Next, we know that John 
Roane verified for Edward Fontaine, in 1834, '' the 
correctness of the speech as it was written by Judge 
Tyler for Mr. Wirt." Therefore, since Judge Tyler 
was one of Wirt's authorities and Judge Tucker another, 
we need not be concerned as to the authenticity of 
Wirt's report. Tw^o more reliable men than Tucker and 
Tyler it would be hard to name. 

Thus far, in our approach to the hour when Henry 
made his master-stroke in oratory, we have been clear- 
ing the way for ourselves. Even now there is some- 
thing else to be done, for we ought to come closer to 
the old parish church of St. John's, and take such a look 
at it that it will be real to us. If we see the tree where 
the mocking-bird sits, we can better hear the song. 
The church was less famous than certain other colonial 
churches, and it was less beautiful. It was beautiful 
only in its situation. It stood then, and stands now, 
on the top of Richmond Hill, whence to the west there 
was a clear prospect of a town of scattered houses, 
dotting other hills, and to the south the river James 
running between high banks over a rocky bottom, vis- 
ible even afar In the sun-sparkle upon the rapids. The 
building was, and is, a frame structure, well set in a 

187 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

grassy and embowered yard. In Henry's time there 
was a clump of cedars near the west end of the church 
— at the spot where George Wythe's unmarked grave 
rebukes the milHons who profit by his genius and espe- 
cially by his tutelage of the Expounder of the Consti- 
tution. Young Marshall was not in the throng of 
'* buckskins " and gentry in scarlet on the hill that 
day, but his father was ; and there passed in through 
the doorway, then on the south side, Washington, Jef- 
ferson, the Lees, and such lesser celebrities as Peter 
Muhlenberg, who, in a Valley pulpit, was soon to stand 
forth a soldier, like a soldier clad. In the pulpit of St. 
John's at this moment sat Peyton Randolph, President 
of the Convention. The delegates faced him, looking 
east, Henry being in the third pew on the north side. 
With its flat ceiling, the long and narrow auditorium 
had no especial acoustic excellences. There was an end 
gallery for spectators, but only seating space in the 
body of the church for the six-score delegates. Yet, 
since by and by people would cling to the window ledges 
looking in, we may assume that aisles and doorway 
likewise were crowded. And as the windows were 
wide open, it may be further assumed that there was 
fine weather abroad — a late March benefaction of south- 
erly breezes and sunshine, tipping with red the church- 
yard maples and awakening a fresh and responsive 
spirit in man. 

Richard Henry Lee seconded the resolutions. Soon 
Henry spoke. Now, it is a fact that Henry's best 
phrases were minted in a heat generated by his own 
mental frictions. Usually a preliminary travail marked 
the struggle of his spirit to express itself. First, his 
own fire had to be kindled within him ; and when this 
was done, the right thoughts, the right words, the right 
gestures, came of themselves — all in harmony, all in 
obedience to his will, which was now the absolute 

i88 



WE MUST FIGHT 

master of theme, of voice, of manner, of audience. On 
this occasion there was Httle, if any, effort at the start. 
No doubt he was keyed to his best endeavor. He must 
have wrestled with himself before he entered the 
church. Perhaps he had thought for many days and 
nights upon the step he was about to take. '' My heart 
was hot within me, and while I was thus musing the 
fire kindled, and at the last I spake with my tongue." 
Here is what he said : 

" No man, Mr. President, thinks more highly than I do of 
the patriotism, as well as the abilities, of the very honorable 
gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different 
men often see the same subject in different lights; and, there- 
fore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentle- 
men if, entertaining as I do, opinions of a character opposite 
to theirs, I should speak forth my sentiments freely and without 
reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The question before 
the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my 
own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of 
freedom or slavery ; and in proportion to the magnitude of 
the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only 
in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfil the 
great responsibility which we owe to God and our country. 
Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear 
of giving offence, I should consider myself as guilty of treason 
towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the 
majesty of heaven, which I . revere above all earthly kings. 

" Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions 
of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, 
and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us 
into beasts. Is this the part of wise men engaged in a great 
and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of 
the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having 
ears, hear not the things which so nearly concern their tem- 
poral salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it 
■ may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth ; to know the 
worst, and provide for it. 

" I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided ; and that 
is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of 
the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish 
to know what there has been in the conduct of the British 

189 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Ministry, for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with 
which gent|emen have been pleased to solace themselves and 
the House.' Is it that insidious smile with which our petition 
has been lately received ? Trust it not, sir ; it will prove a 
snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with 
a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our 
petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover 
our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies neces- 
sary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown 
ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be 
called in to win back love? Let us not deceive ourselves, 
sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation — the last 
arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what 
means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to 
submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive 
for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the 
world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? 
No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us ; they can be 
meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet 
upon us those chains which the British Ministry have been 
so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall 
we try argument? Sir, w^e have been trying that for the last 
ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? 
Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which 
it is capable; but it has been all in vain.^ Shall we resort to 
entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find 
which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech 
you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done every- 
thing that could be done to avert the storm which is now 
coming on. We have petitioned ; we have remonstrated ; we 
have supplicated ; we have prostrated ourselves before the 
throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyran- 
nical hands of the Ministry and Parliament/ Our petitions have 
been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional 
violence and insult ; our supplications have been disregarded ; 
and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the 
throne. 'Qp vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond 
hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room 
for hope. If we wish to be free; if we mean to preserve 
inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been 
so long contending; if we mean not basely to abandon the 
noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and 
which v/e have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the 
glorious object of our contest shall be obtained— we must 

190 




THOMAS CRAWFORD'S <' PATRICK HENRY" 

(One of five bronze figures surrounding the Washington group in the Capitol 
Grounds at Richmond.) 



WE MUST FIGHT 

fight ! I repeat it, sir, we must fight ! An appeal to arms and 
to the God of Hosts is all that is left ns ! 

*' They tell us, sir, that we are weak — unable to cope with so 
formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? 
Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when 
we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be 
stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irreso- 
lution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual 
resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the 
delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have 
bound us hand and foot? j Sir, we are not weak, if we make 
a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath 
placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the 
holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we 
possess, are invincible to any force which our enemy can 
send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles 
alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of 
nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles 
for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the 
vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. 
If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to 
retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission 
and slavery. Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be 
heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable. And 
let it come ! I repeat it, sir ; let it come ! 

" It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen 
may cry peace, peace — but there is no peace. The war is 
actually begun ! The next gale that sweeps from the north 
will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms ! Our 
brethren are already in the field! Why stand we idle here? 
What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is 
life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the 
price of chains and slavery? Forbid it. Almighty God! I 
know not what course others may take, but as for me, give 
me liberty, or give me death I " 

No applause followed. For some seconds there was 
silence. Henry's former opponents were dumb ; and 
they were without the wish to be otherwise than dumb. 
He had made every one present feel as he felt, and 
that feeling was of the most solemn nature. Moses Coit 
Tyler, usually so just and careful, speaks of Patrick 

191 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Henry's " individual declaration of war," but the dele- 
gates did not so regard it. Francis Scott Oliver, in his 
" Alexander Hamilton," mentions '' the heroics of 
Henry " ; but those in St. John's Church who per- 
mitted themselves to be swayed in a life-or-death matter 
were undoubtedly men of sound sense, altogether 
immune to fustian. Of course, a perfervid utterance, 
made under stress, is apt to suffer in commonplace times, 
especially when it becomes as hackneyed as the final 
phrase in Henry's speech. For more than a hundred 
years the humorists have played upon this phrase. 

It may be said, too, that one who now reads the 
speech fails to find it provocative of expected thrills. 
Some of the passages certainly sing in the mind — such, 
for example, as the beautiful interrogation: f'ls life 
so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the 
price of chains and slavery ? "J It is a bit of melody as 
from an old fife at Lexington": it is simple ; it is strong ; 
it compacts in a few Saxon words the whole story of 
the Revolutionary struggle. 

But in our search for the secret of his impressiveness 
we are not to turn the light upon Patrick Henry's 
printed words alone. When the orations of Demos- 
thenes are read, they also fail to evoke their due of 
admiration. All effective oratory, as this ancient worthy 
tells us, depends upon " action, action, action " ; and it 
was because the orator in St. John's put himself, body 
I and soul, into his part that he struck home — solem- 
/ nized the hour, made his hearers exultant, grim, firmly 
I resolved at last.* 

Judge St. George Tucker admits that now for the 
first time he felt " a full impression of Mr. Henry's 
powers. In vain," he adds, " should I attempt to give 

* The resolutions having been adopted, a Committee of tweh'e 
was appointed. Patrick Henry headed it. Washington and 
Jefferson were members of this Committee. 

192 



WE MUST FIGHT 

you an idea of his speech. . . . Imagine to your- 
self this speech deHvered with all the calm dignity of 
Cato of Utica ; imagine to yourself the Roman Senate 
assembled in the Capitol when it was entered by the 
profane Gauls, who at first were awed by their presence 
as if they had entered an assembly of the gods. Imagine 
that you had heard that Cato addressing such a Senate. 
Imagine that you saw the handwriting on the wall of 
Belshazzar's palace. Imagine that you had heard a 
voice as from heaven uttering the words, ' We must 
fight/ as the doom of Fate, and you may have some 
idea of the speaker, the assembly to whom he addressed 
himself, and the auditory, of which I was one." 

Another listener, a Baptist clergyman, is thus quoted 
in Henry Stephens Randall's ** Life of Jefferson " : 

" Henry arose with an unearthly fire burning in his eye. He 
commenced somewhat calmly — but the smothered excitement 
began to play more and more upon his features, and thrill 
in the tones of his voice. The tendons of his neck stood out 
white and rigid like whipcords. His voice rose louder and 
louder, until the walls of the building and all within them 
seemed to shake and rock in its tremendous vibrations. Finally 
his pale face and glaring eyes became terrible to look upon. 
Men leaned forward in their seats with their heads strained 
forward, their faces pale and their eyes glaring like the 
speaker's. His last exclamation — ' Give me liberty, or give 
me death ' — was like the shout of the leader who turns back 
the rout of battle. When he sat down, I felt sick with excite- 
ment. Every eye yet gazed entranced on Henry. It seemed 
as if a word from him would have led to any wild explosion 
of violence. Men looked beside themselves." 

John Roane's account of the scene, as preserved in 
manuscript in the library of Cornell University, is rich 
in details. Roane told the story to Edward Fontaine, 
premising it with the remark that Henry's " voice, 
countenance, and gestures gave an irresistible force 
to his w^ords, which no description could make intelli- 

13 193 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

gible to one who had never seen him, nor heard him 
speak." Roane then said: 

" You remember, sir, the conclusion of the speech, so often 
declaimed in various ways by school-boys — * Is life so dear, or 
peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and 
slavery ? Forbid it, Almighty God ! I know not what course 
others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me 
death ! ' He gave each of these words a meaning which is 
not conveyed by the reading or delivery of them in the ordinary 
way. When he said, ' Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to 
be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?' he stood in 
the attitude of a condemned galley slave, loaded with fetters, 
awaiting his doom. His form was bowed ; his wrists were 
crossed ; his manacles were almost visible, as he stood like 
an embodiment of helplessness and agony. After a solemn 
pause, he raised his eyes and chained hands toward heaven, 
and prayed, in words and tones which thrilled every heart, 
' Forbid it, Almighty God ! ' He then turned toward the timid 
loyalists of the House, who were quaking with terror at the 
idea of the consequences of partaking in proceedings which 
would be visited with the penalties of treason by the British 
crown, and he slowly bent his form yet nearer to the earth, 
and said, * I know not what course others may take,' and 
he accompanied the words with his hands still crossed, while 
he seemed to be weighed down with additional chains. The 
man appeared transformed into an oppressed, heart-broken, and 
hopeless felon. After remaining in this posture of humiliation 
long enough to impress the imagination with the condition of 
the colony under the iron heel of military despotism, he arose 
proudly, and exclaimed, ' but as for me ' — and the words hissed 
through his clenched teeth, while his body was thrown back, 
and every muscle and tendon was strained against the fetters 
which bound him, and with his countenance distorted by agony 
and rage he looked for a moment like Laocoon in a death 
struggle with coiling serpents ; then the loud, clear, triumphant 
tones, * give me liberty,' electrified the assembly. It was not a 
prayer, but a stern demand, which would submit to no refusal or 
delay. The sound of his voice, as he spoke these memorable 
words, was like that of a Spartan p^ean on the field of Plataea : 
and, as each syllable of the word * liberty ' echoed through the 
building, his fetters were shivered; his arms were hurled apart: 
and the links of his chains were scattered to the winds. When 
he spoke the word * liberty,' with an emphasis never given it 

194 



WE MUST FIGHT 

before, his hands were open, and his arms elevated and ex- 
tended ; his countenance was radiant ; he stood erect and defiant ; 
while the sound of his voice and the sublimity of his attitude 
made him appear a magnificent incarnation of Freedom, and 
expressed all that can be acquired or enjoyed by nations and 
individuals invincible and free. After a momentary pause, 
only long enough to permit the word ' liberty ' to cease, he 
let his left hand fall powerless to his side, and clenched his 
right hand firmly, as if holding a dagger with the point aimed 
at his breast. He stood like a Roman Senator defying Caesar, 
while the unconquerable spirit of Cato of Utica flashed from 
every feature; and he closed the grand appeal with the solemn 
words ' or give me death ! ' which sounded with the awful 
cadence of a hero's dirge, fearless of death and victorious in 
death; and he suited the action to the word by a blow upon 
the left breast with the right hand which seemed to drive the 
dagger to the patriot's heart." 

So precise is this description that no one need find it 
hard to reconstruct the orator, put him on his feet in 
the third pew of St. John's, and hear him fill the space 
between the four walls with transcending eloquence. 
John Roane, indeed, gives us the very shadow of a 
shade and traces each effect to its vanishing point ; yet, 
even in his particularity, he leaves something untold. 
Hence there is room for Edmund Randolph's account 
of the scene. Says Randolph : 

" The fangs of European criticism might be challenged to 
spread themselves against the eloquence of that awful day. It 
was a proud one to a Virginian, feeling and acting with his 
country. Demosthenes invigorated the timid, and Cicero 
charmed the backward. The multitude, many of whom had 
travelled to the Convention from a distance, could not suppress 
their emotion. Henry was his pure self. Those who had 
toiled in the artifices of scholastic rhetoric were involuntarily 
driven to an inquiry within themselves, whether rules and 
forms and niceties of elocution would not have choked his 
native fire. It blazed so as to warm the coldest heart. In the 
sacred place of meeting, the church, the imagination had no 
difficulty to conceive, when he launched forth in solemn tones 
various causes of scruples against oppressors, that the British 

195 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

King was lying prostrate from the thunder of heaven. Henry 
was thought in his attitude to resemble St. Paul, while preach- 
ing at Athens, and to speak as a man was never known to 
speak before. After every illusion had vanished, a prodigy 
yet remained. It was Patrick Henry, born in obscurity, poor, 
and without the advantage of literature, rousing the genius 
of his country, and binding a band of patriots together to 
hurl defiance at the tyranny of so formidable a nation as 
Great Britain. This enchantment was spontaneous obedience 
to the working of the soul. When he uttered what commanded 
respect for himself, he solicited no admiring look from those 
who surrounded him. If he had, he must have been abashed 
by meeting every eye fixed upon him. He paused, but he 
paused full of some rising eruption of eloquence. When he 
sat down, his sounds vibrated so loudly, if not in the ears, 
at least in the memory of his audience, that no other member, 
not even his friend who was to second him, was yet adven- 
turous enough to interfere with that voice which had so recently 
subdued and captivated. After a few minutes, Richard Henry 
Lee fanned and refreshed with a gale of pleasure ; but the vessel 
of the Revolution was still under the impulse of the tempest 
which Henry had created. If elegance had been personified, 
the person of Lee would have been chosen. But Henry 
trampled upon rules, and yet triumphed, at this time perhaps 
beyond his own expectation.* Jefferson was not silent. He 

* Ben Jonson's estimate of Lord Bacon as an orator comes 
to mind in reading the various opinions of Patrick Henry's 
oratory : " There happened in my time one noble speaker who 
was full of gravity in his speaking. No man ever spoke more 
neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less empti- 
ness, less idleness in what he uttered. No member of his 
speech but consisted of its own graces. His hearers could 
not cough or look aside from him without loss. He commanded 
where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his 
devotion. The fear of every man that heard him was that he 
should make an end." Speaking of Patrick Henry, David S. 
G. Cabell says : " History does not record any example of a 
greater natural orator. He was not an orator as a result of a 
long and elaborate course of preparation. The loftiness of his 
nature, his strong emotions, his possession in himself of every- 
thing noble and true more than supplied the rhetorician's 
art. . . . The same embarrassment at the beginning of his 
speeches and the speedy recovery of self-possession has been 

196 



WE MUST FIGHT 

argued closely, profoundly, and warmly on the same side. The 
post in this Revolutionary debate belonging to him was that 
at which the theories of republicanism were deposited. Wash- 
ington was prominent, though silent. His looks bespoke a 
mind absorbed in meditation on his country's fate; but a 
positive concert between him and Henry could not more 
effectually have exhibited him to view than when Henry with 
indignation ridiculed the idea of peace ' when there was no 
peace,' and enlarged on the duty of preparing for war.* 

" The generous and noble-minded Thomas Nelson, who now 
for the first time took a more than common part in a great 
discussion, convulsed the moderate by an ardent exclamation, 
in which he called God to witness that if any British troops 
should be landed within the county of which he was the 
lieutenant, he would wait for no orders and would obey none 
which would forbid him to summon his militia and repel the 
invaders at the water's edge. His temper, though it was 
sanguine, and had been manifested in less scenes of opposition, 
seemed to be more than ordinarily excited. His example 
told those who were happy in ease and wealth that to shrink 
was dishonorable." 

This same Thomas Nelson became a power as a 

related of two other great orators, Cicero and Henry Grattan. 
Patrick Henry had great extempore power, and was never 
disconcerted by interruptions. His replies, when interrupted, 
made on the spur of the moment, were always the most effective 
portions of his speech. His dauntless spirit and his extem- 
poraneous power enabled him to rise to the demands of every 
occasion. . . . His language was simple, clear, and strong; 
not unlike that of the New Testament. He had a fine fancy, 
and indulged not unfrequently in figures of speech. He was a 
great word painter. He mirrored nature and was indeed the 
Shakespeare of orators. His oratory was of the style of 
Mirabeau and Chatham, rather than that of Cicero and Burke." 

* It would be interesting, in high degree, if we could follow 
Washington's thoughts as Henry spoke ; and it would be of 
value to us if we could measure the orator's influence in 
strengthening the spirit of the soldier who was to accept the 
chief burden of the war. But, though Washington left journals, 
he left no "journal intime." He was not a self-analyst. We 
have no subjective Washington indeed. 

197 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

patriot. Once he gave $200,000 to the cause, and again 
he supplied a thousand horses. Another of Henry's 
Hsteners, Mann Page, fed Washington's whole army 
for a week from his own plantation. Still another, 
Colonel Edward Carrington, lives in picturesque story 
less by reason of his own high valor than because of his 
connection with the scene at St. John's. Having perched 
himself in one of the east windows, he heard Henry 
from first to last. When he sprang down, he cried, 
with emotion : " Let m.e be buried at this spot ! " In 
the year 1810 his comrades of the Revolution cut the 
turf beneath this east window, and Carrington's tomb 
now marks the place where he consecrated himself to 
the great cause. 



198 



X 

AS A SOLDIER A SET-BACK 

Six weeks after his burst of eloquence on Richmond 
Hill, Henry made another patriotic speech — this time to 
men in hunting- shirts, with arms in their hands. " Our 
first overt act of war," says Jefferson, " was Mr. Henry's 
embodying a force of militia from several counties, 
regularly armed and organized, marching them in mili- 
tary array, and making reprisal on the King's treasury 
at the seat of government for the public powder taken 
away by the Governor." 

Apparently it was a part of the British plan to smother 
rebellion by shutting off warlike supplies from abroad, 
and by seizing those already in the colonies. Appar- 
ently, also. Gage in Massachusetts and Dunmore in 
Virginia were acting in concert. On the i8th of April, 
Gage sent out troops from Boston to destroy the mili- 
tary stores at Concord; and, in stirring sequence, on 
the 19th occurred the battle of Lexington. A long 
way south, next day, was another happening. For on 
Thursday, the 20th, a body of marines under Captain 
Henry Collins furtively left the armed schooner " Mag- 
dalen," at Burwell's Ferry on the James ; marched by 
night to Williamsburg; entered Spotswood's quaint 
old eight-sided brick Powder Horn, with a roof as 
conical as an Irishman's hat; loaded fifteen half-barrels 
of gunpowder into Lord Dunmore's wagon, and made 
off towards their vessel, which they reached by day- 
break. When the sun came up, that same Friday morn- 
ing, there was an explosion — not of the raped gun- 
powder, but of popular wrath. The people of Williams- 
burg gathered on the green, threatening the " palace." 

.199 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Indoors sat Dunmore, ill at ease. To his Council, he 
feigned that he had heard rumors of a slave-rising; 
therefore he had felt bound to secure the gunpowder. 
One of the Council, John Page, of Rosewell, took sides 
with the populace, which caused Dunmore to smash his 
fist down on the table, crying : " Mr. Page, I am aston- 
ished at you ! " This was the Page who later stripped 
the Rosew^ell window-panes of lead, to be made into 
bullets. But all was not talk in Williamsburg that 
morning, for some of the citizens armed themselves, 
while others saddled their horses and rode courier with 
the news. " The alternative was : pay for the powder 
or fight for it." Meantime, Peyton Randolph, Robert 
Carter Nicholas, and other peacemakers drew from 
Dunmore a promise that the gunpowder, if needed, 
should be brought back to the Horn. But next day 
Dunmore sent word that in case the people dared insult 
his secretary, Foy, or Collins of the " Magdalen," " he 
would declare freedom to the slaves and lay the town 
in ashes." If he had been in his senses, Dunmore would 
hardly have made so reckless a threat, even to the 
savage Shawanese, at whose council-fires he had lately 
sat. John Connolly, the Virginia antithesis of Patrick 
Henry, testifies that his lordship went four hundred 
miles on foot during his progress along the border. 
Connolly himself, as Dunmore's agent, travelled four 
thousand miles to arrange that the tomahawk should 
reach the back-door of the Americans just in the nick 
of the coming of the British bayonet at the front-door. 
Perhaps this barbarous matter was upon his lordship's 
mind, unsteadying it, so that when driven to make 
threats he threatened foolishly. But whether troubled 
in conscience or by cowardice, Dunmore from this 
time on played the part of a weakling. 

Two sets of couriers were now well out from Wil- 
liamsburg — those whose business it was to serve as 

200 



AS A SOLDIER 

trumpets of rebellion, and those who followed with 
reassuring intelligence. By reason of the activity of 
the first, a genuine war-scare ran through the counties 
all the way to the Blue Ridge. A chief rendezvous was 
Fredericksburg, and by the 27th of April fourteen com- 
panies of light horsemen had assembled there. More 
than a hundred of these fledgling troopers met in coun- 
cil. They sent to Mount Vernon to get Washington's 
advice, and perhaps the whole force would eventually 
have ridden down on Dunmore had not Peyton Ran- 
dolph sent them word that the tumult was over. Thus, 
in the first phase of the gunpowder episode, we have 
the essentials of a robust comedy. Nor could there 
be a finer ghost for an accompanying moonlight tableau 
in front of the old octagonal Powder Horn than that of 
its builder, Alexander Spotswood, who, at the battle of 
Blenheim, was hit in the ribs by a cannon-ball, but lived 
to identify himself with colonial Virginia. So we who 
lightly review the Dunmore episode may be excused 
for thinking ; but in reality the times were tragic, and 
all hearts were troubled with more than common trouble. 
On the last Saturday of this very month of which we 
have been telling, the Virginia Gazette issued a special 
sheet, giving its first account of the battle of Lexing- 
ton. Henry must have heard the Lexington news about 
the time he learned with chagrin of the dispersal of 
the light horsemen at Fredericksburg. He was at his 
" Scotchtown " home, preparing to ride towards Phila- 
delphia, where the Second Congress was to sit on the 
loth of May. Instead of riding North, he rode South. 
Accounts by no means agree as to his first impulses, 
calculations, and movements ; but the accepted story is 
that he deliberately set about the business of taking 
Dunmore by the throat. According to Wirt, he made 
up his mind that " a blow must be struck at once before 
an overwhelming force should enter the colony"; that 

201 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

the " habitual deference and subjection which the people 
were accustomed to feel towards the Governor, as the 
representative of royalty, and which bound their spirits 
in a kind of torpid spell, should be dissolved and dissi- 
pated ; that the military resources of the country should 
be developed ; that the people might see and feel their 
strength by being brought out together " ; in a word, that 
the Revolution should be begun in Virginia as well as 
in New England. Moses Coit Tyler thinks that the 
barren muster of light horsemen at Fredericksburg was 
a sore disappointment to Henry ; " his soul took fire 
at the lamentable mistake which he thought they had 
made." William Wirt Henry cannot but feel that it was 
the Lexington news which stirred him to immediate 
action. To Colonel Richard Morris and Captain George 
Dabney, Hanover committeemen, Henry declared that 
the gunpowder outrage at Williamsburg was a " fortu- 
nate circumstance " for the patriots. It would arouse the 
people from North to South. Said he : " You may in 
vain mention to them the duties on tea, and so on. These 
things, they will say, do not affect them. But tell them 
of the robbery of the magazine, and that the next step 
will be to disarm them, and they will be then ready to 
fly to arms to defend themselves." 

As ardent as Henry himself were many of the Han- 
over farmers, and they shared his belief that the moment 
was opportune. So it was agreed to act at once. Ex- 
press riders were sent hot-foot to beat up the volunteers, 
New Castle being the rendezvous and the 2d of May 
the day of meeting. 

Now, as no soldier in Henry's gunpowder army tells 
us about this old town, it may be well to borrow a few 
lines from the diary of William Feltman, one of Wayne's 
lieutenants, who campaigned here later in the war. 
" This day " (August i8), writes Feltman, "Lieut. Col- 
lier and self took a walk to New Castle ; spent the after- 

202 



AS A SOLDIER 

noon In playing billiards. The town is situated on a 
fine plain ; there are but a small number of houses ; the 
town is built very irregular. . . . There are a few 
very elegant buildings. A few of us bucks remained in 
town all night at the onery ; got very merry. As for 
watermelons, this county is full of them." But the 
watermelon vines of Hanover had not begun to run 
when the minute-men of the two parishes hurried to 
New Castle in obedience to Henry's summons. En- 
rolled the fall before, it is doubtful whether they were 
as yet fully organized. They gathered around Henry, 
and the speech he made them was to this effect: Who 
now could fail to see the British plan? It was first to 
get the powder and the guns. They had tried it in the 
North; had failed; precious blood had been spilt at 
Lexington. They had tried it in the South — should 
they be permitted to succeed ? The plunder of the maga- 
zine at Williamsburg was an act in pursuance of the 
general scheme of subjugation — a flagrant outrage upon 
the people of Virginia. The moment had come to say 
whether they chose to live as freemen and hand down 
this inheritance to their children, or to be hewers of 
wood and drawers of water to these lordlings who 
were themselves the tools of a corrupt and tyrannical 
ministry. He painted the land as it would be under the 
threatened vassalage, sparing no words ; then he drew 
a picture of America as it should be, and would be, if 
by their valor, with God as their guide, they should 
strike, and strike again, and still strike, till at last their 
liberties were established. No time was to be lost. As 
yet their enemies were few in number. Now, if ever, 
a body blow must be delivered. 

No sooner had he ended than the volunteers, much 
inflamed, elected him their captain, pledging themselves 
to follow wherever he might lead. Henry's forward 
movement was immediate. Detaching Ensign Parke 

203 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Goodall, with sixteen men, to go to Laneville, in King 
William County, and demand i330 of Receiver-General 
Richard Corbin in compensation for the gunpowder, 
he himself took the Williamsburg road with the main 
body of his volunteers. On the night of the 3d he 
camped at Doncastle's Ordinary, sixteen miles from 
the capital. There Ensign Goodall reported. He had 
surrounded Corbin's house at night, but in the morning 
had learned that Corbin was elsewhere. However, a 
message from Corbin soon reached Henry, and next 
day the compensatory sum was paid. Finally, letters 
passed between Henry and Robert Carter Nicholas as 
to whether the volunteers should escort the public treas- 
ury to a less tumultous place than the capital. Treasurer 
Nicholas expressed doubt as to " the propriety of the 
proffered service " ; and the idea was abandoned. 

Henry's main object, of course, had been attained. 
His force had increased by constant accessions, and 
some five thousand men are said to have been under 
arms. At his bidding, his followers dispersed. Mean- 
time, Dunmore had planted cannon on the " palace " 
green, had sent his wife on board the man-of-war 
" Fowey," and had ordered up marines from York. 
These also now retired, and the brief campaign was over. 

Thus far the accepted account ; but was there ever 
in the history of man a narrative of a military operation, 
big or little, that did not give rise to some dispute 
between its surviving participants? Like pigeons in a 
flock, the facts never alight at the same moment and at 
the same spot. Some of them are sure to circle wide 
and perch to suit themselves. In his old age Samuel 
Meredith, Henry's brother-in-law, dictated a curious 
memorandum on the gunpowder expedition. Some 
manuscript notes left by Wirt show that he was puzzled 
by it. These notes, with others by Judge Roane, as 
well as statements by Nathaniel Pope and George and 

204 



AS A SOLDIER 

Charles Dabney, and the Meredith manuscript itself, 
are all here before us now. Colonel Parke Goodall 
told Roane that the Meredith story was erroneous. 
George and Charles Dabney agree that Meredith was 
not in full commission as captain of the Hanover volun- 
teers when the troops met at New Castle. No wonder 
Wirt concluded that " in the course of thirty years " 
Meredith " may have confounded the order of events.'* 
Meredith says that " P. Henry knew nothing of the 
first meeting or first movements of the Hanover volun- 
teers." They were already astir when Colonel Syme 
despatched a letter to Henry, then actually on his way 
to Congress. In response to this letter, Henry soon 
reached New Castle, conferred with Meredith, and 
agreed to address the company. But let us follow this 
quaint manuscript, which unfortunately has upon it 
the stain of dubiety as well as the pleasing dinginess of 
more than a hundred years : 

"When he [Henry] retired for the purpose of preparing to 
go and address the Company, it was proposed by S. Meredith 
that every effort should be made to induce P. H. to take the 
command of the Company ; that they stood in need of his wis- 
dom to direct them, and of his eloquence and his reputation to 
protect them in case their schemes should fail or be dis- 
approved. This proposition met with universal approbation 
It was accordingly agreed that as soon as P. H. should finish 
his address, Colonel M. should resign in his favor, that they 
should drown all his objections by their cries of approbation, 
and that he should be forcibly invested with the Hunting Shirt 
and the uniform of the times — S. M. to remain second in com- 
mand. This plan was carried into effect ; for as soon as he had 
finished his address (and an elegant one it was), Colonel M. 
resigned the command. Colonel [Edmund] Winston and others 
clothed P. H. in the Hunting Shirt. He was an entire stranger 
to the plan till the moment of its execution, and resisted 
their importunities as long as he could, urging the necessity 
of his presence in Congress. But at length, finding all resist- 
ance vain, he yielded to their entreaties, and declared that he 
would not refuse to execute plans which had been sanctioned 

205 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

by his advice. Afterwards on the same day it was determined 
to send a party to King and Queen to take the person of 
Colonel Corbin, the Receiver General, in order to ensure pay- 
ment from the money of the Crown for the military stores 
taken by Dunmore; but strict orders were given to do no 
injury to his person. This party was to meet the main body 
at Armistead's Tavern in New Kent. They went to Colonel 
Corbin's, but he was from home. On the same day that P. H. 
was elected to the command, the Company marched on to 
Park's Spring; from thence, the next day, to New Kent Court 
House, where they were met by Mr. Norton, a son-in-law of 
R. C Nicholas, sent up by him to know the extent of the 
objects of the volunteers, which by this time had been 
variously conjectured and related; for the people in Williams- 
burg particularly had become alarmed at the great force which 
was collecting from various parts. The example of the Han- 
over volunteers, headed by a man of P. H.['s] reputation, 
and a member of Congress, had excited a similar spirit in the 
adjoining counties. Norton was prevented by P. H. from 
returning, and all persons travelling towards Williamsburg 
were arrested in their progress. The next day they proceeded 
to Doncastle's. That night another messenger arrived from 
Mr. Nicholas, as the Chairman of the Common Council of the 
City of Williamsburg, with the information that Dunmore had 
gone on board the man-of-war, that the people of Williams- 
burg were relieved of their apprehensions, and praying that 
the volunteers might proceed no further. The next day the 
men were enrolled, and consisted of 1500; and P. H., in answer 
to Mr, Nicholas, sent him a letter by Holt Richardson (with 
whom Norton was permitted to return), detailing to him the 
objects of the volunteers, and requesting a valuation of the 
military stores, etc. Richardson returned with the valuation, 
amounting to about £360 sterling, and in his company, or 
very shortly after him, came Mr. Carter Braxton, who was the 
son-in-law of Colonel Corbin. He informed P. H. that 
Colonel Corbin had been made acquainted with the objects .of 
the volunteers, and sent him to make satisfaction for the 
military stores according to their valuation ; and tendered bills 
drawn by Corbin on Hanberry of London, which were refused 
by P. H., altho' Braxton offered to indorse them. Braxton 
was much mortified, and expressed his surprise that he should 
be refused as indorser for so small a sum as i36o sterling. 
P. H. acted in such a manner as to convince Mr. Braxton that 
he refused him as indorser because he was suspicious, not of 

206 



AS A SOLDIER 

his ability to pay, but of his political attachments. He certainly 
treated him with great coolness and reserve, for he was writing 
at the time Mr. Braxton first entered the room, and Samuel 
Meredith, who was present during the whole interview, is not 
certain that Mr. H. rose from his chair. P. H. told Mr. 
Braxton that Dunmore had already gone on board the man- 
of-war, and was ready to protect and carry off any person or 
persons friendly. to his views; that Corbin, his father-in-law, 
was agent of the Crown, and he, C. B., was the agent of 
Corbin, giving him thus clearly to understand that he was 
fearful the Drawer and indorser of the Bill might disappear 
with Dunmore; and thus the main object of the volunteers, 
compensation for the arms, etc., [would] be defeated. Colonel 
Meredith is positive that the cool treatment Braxton received 
from P. H. arose altogether from the suspicions entertained 
of B. by P. H., and that his suspicions had been excited by no 
other cause than the near connexion existing between Braxton 
and Colonel Corbin, who was agent of the Crown, and 
therefore he (Corbin) was suspected by Mr. H. Mr. 
Braxton had not then given the evidence which his subse- 
quent conduct afforded, of his attachment to the cause of 
the Revolution. P. H., in a private conversation with S. 
Meredith, after C. Braxton retired, did not hesitate to de- 
clare to him the reason of his conduct towards Braxton and 
the nature and cause of his suspicions. He informed Mr. B. 
before he retired that he would take as indorser any responsi- 
ble character of known attachment to the Revolutionary cause. 
On Carter B. mentioning Colonel Nelson, P. H. said he would 
receive him very willingly. Some time after, Colonel Nelson 
arrived at Doncastle's. Mr. B. was with him, but whether Mr. 
Braxton had gone to Williamsburg for him, or met him on the 
way, or whether Mr. Nelson found Mr. Braxton at Doncastle's, 
is not certain in the recollection of Samuel Meredith. As soon 
as P. H. heard of the arrival of Colonel Nelson, he ran out of 
the house, bareheaded, and received him with the utmost 
warmth of friendship. The bills were indorsed by Colonel 
Nelson, received by P. H., and the troops, except the Hanover 
volunteers, dismissed." 

Prolix as it is, we have been at pains to reproduce 
this account of the meeting of Braxton and Henry, 
because of its bearing upon Henry's future. Henry 
did what seemed to him the best thing for the public 

207 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

good, but in so doing he made a personal sacrifice ; that 
is to say, he incurred the enmity of a rich and influential 
man. Before the end of the year, Braxton had it in 
his power to do Henry a downright injury. We 
shall soon come to this; it should be added now that 
whatever Meredith's misconceptions as to Henry's 
actual initiative of the expedition, there appears to be 
no sound reason why they should vitiate other parts 
of his narrative. He was certainly a man of high char- 
acter ; he was certainly with Henry from New Castle 
on ; and his circumstantial statement with respect to 
Carter Braxton has upon it the stamp of truth. 

Throughout this passage-at-arms Henry acted with 
prescience, vigor, and circumspection. Some may say 
that he should have marched on to Williamsburg and 
swept Dunmore out of Virginia. No doubt he felt like 
doing so; but he knew his Virginians too well to go 
beyond the point of reprisal. If he had put himself in 
the wrong, he might have harmed the patriot cause with 
the " peace party " men, whom he was seeking to win 
over. Weatherwise as to the great storm muttering 
'round the sky, he saw that what was done to-day should 
be done with to-morrow constantly in view. Therefore 
he was careful to put upon record an exact statement of 
his object and his acts. In his receipt to Corbin he 
made it clear that such of the money as should not be 
used in buying fifteen half-barrels of gunpowder would 
be returned, and this was done ; for Henry himself sub- 
sequently bought the powder for £112 los., resupplied 
the colony, and gave back the balance of the money to 
the Receiver-General. Trifling though this matter 
seems, it is of consequence in that it throws a light upon 
the man's character, and once more disproves the fallacy 
as to his inattention to detail. 

By reason of the gunpowder transaction, Henry 
became more than ever the " Man of the People." The 

208 



AS A SOLDIER 

Hanover County Committee insisted upon assuming 
responsibility for his act. Eight other counties formally 
thanked him. Louis Hue Girardin, referring to the 
period of this exploit, declares that '' Patrick Henry was 
now at the zenith of his popularity." Nevertheless, 
hardly had he returned to '' Scotchtown " when he found 
himself the subject of a fulmination from the " palace " : 
" I have been informed, from undoubted authority," 
said Dunmore, in a proclamation, under date of the 
8th of May, " that a certain Patrick Henry and a 
number of his deluded followers have taken up arms 
. . . and put themselves in a posture for war ; '' 
wherefore all persons were strictly charged, " upon 
their allegiance, not to aid, abet, or give countenance 
to the said Patrick Henry." 

The " said Patrick " paid no further attention to the 
official attaint than to address an explanatory letter to 
Francis Lightfoot Lee. As he was going North, he 
wanted Lee to set him right before the coming Con- 
vention. Nor would he have cared if he had known that 
Dunmore was denouncing him to the Ministry over-sea. 
Dunmore wrote that Henry was " a man of desperate 
circumstances, who had been active in encouraging dis- 
obedience and exciting a spirit of revolt among the 
people for many years past." The members of the 
Council, too, expressed their " detestation and abhor- 
rence for that licentious and ungovernable spirit that had 
gone forth and misled the once happy people of the 
country." " It was thus," says Girardin, " that this 
body permitted itself to speak of that glorious spirit of 
liberty which at that time glowed alike in every Vir- 
ginian bosom. Henceforward the Council was consid- 
ered as the enemy of liberty and the abettor of tyranny, 
and became scarcely less odious in the eyes of the people 
than Dunmore himself." But Girardin speeds some- 
what too fast. Loyalty, or something very like loyalty, 
14 209 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

still lingered in a few " Virginian bosoms," and the 
breath was not as yet quite out of that ancient body, 
the House of Burgesses. Once more it met — this time 
to weigh and reject the belated conciliatory proposals 
of Lord North. And once more the Powder Horn 
comes into the story. While the Burgesses were sitting, 
some young men who wanted arms entered the ancient 
arsenal by night, whereupon one of a number of spring- 
guns, set by Dunmore's direction, shot them foully. 
Again the people rose, and Dunmore fled to a war-ship 
in the York. The Burgesses saw that they could do 
nothing to patch up peace. Most of them had no wish 
to do anything, unless a great victory could be won 
without war. But they expected war. Some of them 
were in hunting shirts and kept their rifles at hand. 
" It was no longer a body of civilians in ruffles and 
powder," says John Esten Cooke, " but a meeting of 
men in military accoutrements ready to fight." They 
adjourned ; and after that there was never a quorum. 
Thrice again the dying colonial parliament gasped. 
Finally the Journal records that " several members met, 
but did neither proceed to business or adjourn." ''And 
below these words," says W. G. Stanard, " the clerk 
has written in heavy lettering ' Finis,' closing the record 
of the last of the Virginia Colonial Legislatures with 
an elaborate corkscrew tail-piece." 

At this point it seems but fair to say that in ten years 
Henry and those who sided with him had practically 
rid " the most loyal colony " of loyalists. The Tory 
element was absorbed by strictly American parties. 
From Massachusetts, in the final tempest, there was an 
exodus of more than a thousand out-and-out King's 
men ; but the notable Virginia refugees could be counted 
on the fingers of one hand. May we not intimate that, 
in a measure, the unity of the Old Dominion people is 
a tribute to Henry's politic course and to the effective- 

210 



AS A SOLDIER 

ness of his pleas? In vain do we search among these 
few refugees for some such tidewater character as 
that old lover of royalty, George James Bruere, Gov- 
ernor of the Bermudas, who, like Byrd, might have 
figured in a Thackeray novel. Says his grandson, 
Henry St. George Tucker, nephew of the Virginia St. 
George : 

" I remember to have seen him, after radier copious libations, 
go through the evolutions of the battle of Culloden, and other 
great fights in which he was personally engaged. He marched 
and countermarched — charged the enemy with great vigor — 
handled his large stick with great skill and effect (albeit with 
some peril to those around him), and generally concluded 
with the shout of victory — the ' British Grenadiers ' — or the 
popular anthem, ' God Save the King.' He was heart and soul 
a Royalist; while my grandfather Tucker,* from his American 
connexions, took a favorable view of the American cause. The 
uncompromising Governor called the Americans ' rebels ' — a 
term of reproach which, naturally enough, gave mortal offence 
to one who, at that moment, had two sons to whom the 
opprobrious term applied. These proud spirits separated, never 
again to meet in friendly hall." 

But if there were no Brueres in Virginia, there was 
a Wormley. Ralph Wormley was the last of the loyal- 
ists. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he was perhaps 
the dearest lover of books in all America. He had two 
things at heart — his library and the great Anglican 
empire. As a member of Dunmore's Council, he had 
just expressed his '' detestation and abhorrence " of 
Henry's rebellious spirit. But in more pacific times. 
happening to enter a Williamsburg store one day, Henry 

* One of the sons of this Bermuda Tucker was the grand- 
father of Charlotte M. Tucker, known in literature as " A. L. 
O. E." ; another son was Tudor, Treasurer of the United States 
under Washington and other Presidents down to John Quincy 
Adams' time ; still another son, Nathaniel, a doctor in England, 
started a twelve-book epic on the American Revolution. 

211 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

saw this worthy, deep in an ancient tome. " What, 
Mr. Wormley, still studying books ! " said he. " Study 
men, Mr. Wormley, study men ! " One can imagine 
with what contempt the Oxford scholar received this 
remark, underrating as he did the living books so 
familiar to his critic. Wormley did not leave America 
during the war. Henry liked him — all who knew him 
esteemed him ; and he and his cartloads of treasures 
were sent beyond the Blue Ridge. But, sighing for 
the tidewater country, he at last returned thither. A 
Tory privateer from New York landed, and plundered 
his house. Thus, with his venerated empire disrupted 
by the Whigs and his beloved books vandalized by the 
Tories, poor Ralph Wormley, sitting among his empty 
shelves, had poignant reason for remembering Henry's 
words, " Study men." 

Three days after his return from the gunpowder 
expedition, Henry left home for the North. It was 
expected that Dunmore would seek to intercept him. 
Here is a newspaper account of his journey: 

" Hanover, May 12, 1775. — Yesterday Patrick Henry, one 
of the Delegates of this Colony, escorted by a number of 
respectable young gentlemen, Volunteers from this and King 
William and Caroline Counties, set out to attend the General 
Congress. They proceeded with him as far as Mrs. Hooe's 
Ferry on the Potomack, by whom they were most kindly and 
hospitably entertained ; and also provided with boats and hands 
to cross the river. And after partaking of this lady's benefi- 
cence, the bulk of the company took their leave of Mr. 
Henry, saluting him with two platoons and repeated huzzas. A 
guard accompanied that worthy gentleman to the Maryland 
side, who saw him safely landed, and committing him tO 
the gracious and wise Disposer of all human events, to guide 
and protect while contending for a restitution of our dearest 
rights and liberties, they wished him a safe journey and a 
happy return to his family and friends." 

As he rode towards Philadelphia, was it in Henry's 
mind to become a soldier? Had his success with the 

212 



AS A SOLDIER 

volunteers influenced him in the matter? Had he not 
long led in voicing resistance, and would it not be his 
duty to fight, now that the time for fighting had come? 
Naked consistency demanded that he should make a 
soldier of himself. And when he reached Philadelphia, 
he saw much to feed and fire his military spirit. It 
was a livelier city than the one he had left the fall 
before. Camped in the groves were light infantrymen 
in green, as well as many militia-men in brown, with 
buck-tails on their little round hats and the word 
" Liberty " on their cartouch-boxes. Even his con- 
sumptive-looking friend Dickinson intended to go out 
as a colonel. Moreover, when Henry took his seat as 
one of the seventy-eight members of the Second Con- 
gress, which he did on Thursday, the i8th of May, 
eight days late, he almost touched elbows with Wash- 
ington, wearing his blue and buff. " There he was 
. symbolically clad in his military uniform, a 
sword at his side, the thoughtful Colonel, who spoke in 
deeds, not words." Nor had Henry more than time 
to survey the State House hall, soon to be known as 
Independence Hall, and perhaps note the presence of 
that great man, Benjamin Franklin, and Boston's rich 
importer, John Hancock, when the President announced 
from his chair the glorious news of the taking of Ticon- 
deroga. It was, indeed, a stirring time throughout the 
country — Bunker Hill summer was about to open, and 
Henry, with his fellow members, partook of the gen- 
eral excitement. In Committee of the Whole on the 
state of America, they spent a week debating as to the 
course to be pursued ; and on the 26th of May they 
voted to prepare for defence. Jay and Dickinson were 
for further parley ; the Adamses, and beyond doubt 
Henry, though no record of speeches by him is to be 
had, stood up for the immediate creation of an army 
and navy. " The bugle call to arms which he had 

213 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

sounded in the Virginia Convention only two months 
before," says WilHam Wirt Henry, " was most cer- 
tainly repeated with all the energy and eloquence of 
which he was capable, now that he stood in the midst 
of the representatives of the United Colonies." 

There is evidence that in this Congress Washington 
and Henry thought ahke and worked together. They 
were on a committee to fortify the colony of New York, 
and on another to supply the continent with military 
necessities ; and they otherwise labored in concert to 
prepare for war. On the 15th of June, when Washing- 
ton was made Commander-in-Chief, tears came into his 
eyes as he said to Henry : " This day will be the com- 
mencement of the decline of my reputation." Accord- 
ing to the Journal for the 21st of June, " Mr. Henry 
informed the Congress that the General had put into 
his hands sundry queries to which he desired the Con- 
gress would give an answer." With Franklin and 
Judge James Wilson, Henry was selected to manage the 
Indian affairs of the Middle Department. When the 
news came that Joseph Warren had been slain, he was 
quick to draw a patriotic moral. *' A breach on our 
affections," said he, '' was needed to arouse the country 
to action." In his talks with John Adams, " Patrick 
Henry was in favor of [foreign] alliances, even if they 
must be bought by concessions of territory." 

In fine, we conclude that during this whole session 
of Congress Henry was a " business member " — alert, 
useful, ready to speak the right word or to do the 
right thing. We are just reaching this conclusion with 
respect to poor Henry when we turn a corner and come 
face to face with Mr. Jefferson, who says : 

" I found Henry to be a silent and almost unmeddling mem- 
ber in Congress. On the original opening of that body, while 
general grievances were the topic, he was in his element, and 
captivated all by his bold and splendid eloquence. But as soon 

214 



AS A SOLDIER 

as they came to specific matters, to sober reasoning and 
solid argumentation, he had the good sense to perceive that 
his declamation, however excellent in its proper place, had no 
weight at all in such an assembly as that, of cool-headed, 
reflecting, judicious men. He ceased, therefore, in a great 
measure, to take part in the business. He seemed, indeed, 
very tired of the place, and wonderfully relieved when, by 
appointment of the Virginia Convention to be Colonel of 
their first regiment, he was permitted to leave Congress about 
the last of July." 

Remembering that Mr. Jefferson him.self had re- 
mained so long with the dying House of Burgesses that 
he did not take his seat in Congress until the 2ist of 
June; that Henry did not start for home until after 
the adjournment of Congress on the ist of August; 
that his election to the colonelcy of the First Virginia 
Regiment did not take place until the 5th of August — 
remembering these things, and others unnecessary to 
recapitulate, we lift our hat to Mr. Jefferson and pass 
on. 

In the latter days of the session, Henry's silence, if 
silent he were, may have been due to the fact that he 
had already said his say ; or it may have been due to a 
natural concern on his part as to political developments 
in Virginia ; or it is possible that in the dead of summer 
his committee work was exacting and fatiguing. It 
must be apparent to every one who closely follows his 
life that he was a steady and sturdy thinker — none 
more clear-headed ; and there was that in the situation 
of the country, as well as in his own changing rela- 
tions to the public, which gave him much to ponder over. 
For instance, we come again to the question he was 
asking himself: Should he be a soldier? Many mem- 
bers expected to belt on the sword, and some of them 
looked for high places in the army. " Oh that I were 
a soldier! I will be," wrote the ambitious husband of 
Abigail Adams; and this same worthy, telling of the 

215 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

time when he named Washington as Continental Com- 
mander-in-Chief, says : 

" Mr. Hancock — who was our President, which gave me art 
opportunity to observe his countenance while I was speaking 
on the state of the Colonies, the army at Cambridge, and the 
enemy — heard me with visible pleasure ; but when I came to 
describe Washington for the commander, I never remarked 
a more sudden and striking change of countenance. Mortifi- 
cation and resentment were expressed as forcibly as his face 
could exhibit them." 

Hancock expected that Hancock would be the man. 
And when Congress in a body attended General Wash- 
ington's review of the Pennsylvania troops — light horse, 
artillery, rangers, riflemen — how emulous the members 
must have been of the gentry with shoulder-straps, who, 
in their pride and pomp of war, seemed to be about 
to carry ofif the laurels of the long-brewing conflict ! 
All morning on the day of the review the streets of 
the city were given over to soldiers and crowds of 
spectators. It was an infectious scene, a spectacle to 
glory in — drums rolling, fifes whistling their merriest, 
cannon sounding from river to river. The smell of 
burnt gunpowder put fight into many a man hitherto 
content to wear a broadbrim ; and good Quakers that 
very hour broke away from the tenets of their faith. 
Thus we see that if Henry's " striking and lucky coup 
de main," as Rives calls the gunpowder expedition, had 
put it into his head to try his skill in the field, the idea 
must have ripened in the patriotic and military atmos- 
phere of Philadelphia. 

Since they reached Richmond together, taking their 
seats in the Third Virginia Convention on the 9th of 
August, it may be assumed that Henry and Harrison 
and Jefferson and Pendleton rode down in company 
all the way from Philadelphia. If so, how did they 
pair? The jovial Harrison was heavy only to his horse.. 

216 



AS A SOLDIER 

Henry was of repute as a most agreeable comrade of 
the saddle. Pendleton was in every way equal to the 
pretty business of masking his thoughts about a rival 
and of entertaining his fellow-travellers. If Henry 
broached the subject of soldiering, Pendleton would 
have talked well on the subject; but his mind would 
have outsped his tongue, upon which he kept a rein as 
upon his horse. His was a lawyer's view of the world. 
*' The report of a law case had for him a charm which 
a novel has for others." Jefferson, the young man of 
the party, kept closer to Pendleton than to Henry. 
*' Taken all in all," Jefferson thought Pendleton " the 
ablest man in debate " he had '* ever met with." *' He 
had not, indeed, the poetical fancy of Mr. Henry, his 
sublime imagination, his lofty and overwhelming dic- 
tion," but Jefferson had lasting respect for his high 
qualities as a reasoner. So we see them pass southward, 
two by two, without aloofness on Pendleton's part 
towards Henry, and Henry unconscious of any eerie 
discomfort when he rode in Pendleton's shadow. It 
would be different when cooler weather came ; but just 
now it was ripening weather, and if the party put up 
at *' Scotchtown," we may be sure they saw the red 
heart of some monster melon sweet to the tooth. 

There was news for them in Richmond. The Con- 
vention had met on the 17th of July. Fresh to public 
service, and sitting in Washington's seat, was George 
Mason — a great man — with whom Henry now formed 
a friendship unbroken till death. Mason saw about him 
a body of delegates less to his liking than he had hoped 
to see. Yet the Convention got along. " We must 
fight " was written across its chief ordinances, and it 
specifically provided for an enrolment of the fighters. 
In addition to 8180 minute-men, it voted to organize 
three regular regiments, each a thousand strong, with 
five companies of buckskin boys for the mountain border. 

217 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Who should lead them? A debate arose, and Henry's 
shortcomings were dwelt upon. It was said that " his 
studies had been directed to civil and not military pur- 
suits ; that he was totally unacquainted with the art of 
war, and had no knowledge of military discipline.'* 
There were good soldiers in Virginia, and one of them 
at least was present — Andrew Lewis, who with his five 
brothers had fought in Braddock's war. He it was who 
at Point Pleasant had coolly smoked his pipe while 
riflemen fell around him — not flinching even when his 
dear brother. Colonel Charles, was killed, but resolutely 
keeping up his battle till Cornstalk perished and the 
Shawanese broke away through the forest. Fiery, bold, 
a six-footer like Washington — " the earth seemed to 
tremble under him as he walked along." But General 
Lewis was bespoken. Washington wished him to be a 
major-general in the Continental line. 

Another good Virginia soldier — born in Aberdeen 
about the time that Patrick Henrv's father left it — was 
the Scotch doctor of Fredericksburg, Hugh Mercer, 
who in time fell at Princeton. On the first ballot Mercer 
led; but the logic of the situation, a name to conjure 
with in raising recruits, and the fresh eclat of the 
Powder Horn episode — these and other recommenda- 
tions gained for Patrick Henry the place he wished. 
When he reached Richmond, he found himself Colonel 
of the First Regiment and Commander-in-Chief of the 
provincial army about to be raised. The proposed 
third regiment was not formed. William Woodford, a 
trained officer, became Colonel of the Second Regiments 
He was a strong character. He had lobbied for Mercer 
against Henry, whom he regarded as a mere civilian. 
Already there were signs that certain followers of the 
drum harbored prejudices against those who were yet 
to win their scars. 

On the 26th of August, the last day of the session, 

218 



AS A SOLDIER 

Henry became officially a soldier. His commission was 
signed by the Committee of Safety — a newly-created 
body which he himself had helped to bring into being. 
As we shall see, it was to be a case in which the eagle 
grew the feather that fledged the arrow that brought 
the eagle down. 

Let us take • careful note of the plight of the Com- 
monwealth and of the functions of this Committee. It 
was the transition period between the end of royal and 
the beginning of republican institutions. All was loose ; 
all was tentative ; much depended upon the men invested 
with authority, and upon the way they construed that 
authority. There was no Governor. The Convention 
could not sit continuously ; therefore it appointed *' a 
Committee of Safety for the m.ore effectual carrying 
into execution [of] the several rules and regulations 
established by this Convention for the protection of 
this Colony." Its chairm.an was Edmund Pendleton, 
and the other members were George Mason, John Page, 
Richard Bland, Thomas Ludwell Lee, Paul Carrington, 
Dudley Digges, William Cabell, Carter Braxton, James 
Mercer, and John Tabb. By his commission and by his 
oath, Henry was to obey '' all orders and instructions " 
which he might receive from the Committee. At the 
same time, it was specified that he was to be *' Colonel 
of the First Regiment of Regulars and Commander- 
in-Chief of all the forces to be raised for the protection 
of this colony." " All officers and soldiers, and even^ 
person whatsoever, in any way concerned," were to be 
" obedient and assisting to him." 

With these facts in mind, let us follow Pendleton, 
the civil head, and Henry, the military head, to Wil- 
liamsburg, the rendezvous of the troops. Pendleton 
took with him a quorum of the Committee. In Mason's 
absence, due to illness, there is no doubt that Pendleton 
had his own way in most matters. Let it be remem- 

219 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

bered, also, that Carter Braxton, whom Henry had 
rebuffed at Doncastle's Ordinary, was now in a position 
to help or hurt him. 

But as yet there were no signs of friction between 
the Committee and the commander, who spent a month 
at *' Scotchtown," setting his house in order, so that 
when once afield he might go as far and stay as long as 
need be. " Thursday last," says the Williamsburg 
Gazette, September 23, '' arrived here Patrick Henry, 
Esq., Commander-in-Chief of the Virginia forces. He 
was met and escorted to town by the whole body of 
volunteers, who paid him every mark of respect and 
distinction in their power.'' He pitched his camp in 
the fields west of the College ; and week by week the 
encampment grew, until, in mid-October, it contained 
nine companies of regulars. Arms were scarce. In 
their drill, hundreds of men handled old fowling-pieces. 
The soldiers of the First Regiment were uniformed in 
buckskin hunting shirts and leggings, but, as a rule, 
motley was the wear. The Culpeper minute-men were 
clad in green. On the breasts of their hunting shirts 
big white letters spelled out the legend, " Liberty or 
Death " ; buck-tails drooped picturesquely from their 
hats, and their belts held tomahawks and scalping- 
knives. In Henry's camp was young John Marshall, a 
Fauquier lieutenant, and he too wore the motto of the 
time. Not till later did the Third Virginia delight the 
patriot maids of the colony by appearing in sky-blue, 
faced in paler blue ; and there is no evidence whatever 
that Patrick Henry ever donned the blue and buff. 

October was spent in disciplining the troops. There 
was doubt as to the advisability of aggressive effort. 
As the days passed, Henry realized that his first rub 
would be, not with Dunmore on the bayside, but with 
the gentlemen of the Committee. Digges, Page, and 
Carrington are said to have cooperated with Colonel 

220 



AS A SOLDIER 

Henry; but not so Pendleton and his followers. The 
whole force of regulars was soon to be put into the 
Continental line ; and it suited Pendleton to keep Henry 
inactive, so that some one sent down by Congress might 
supersede him. Meantime, it troubled Henry, thus 
ignobly held in the leash, that Dunmore should be per- 
mitted to bum. and rob along the rivers, and go unpun- 
ished. Dunmore had two redcoat regiments, a band of 
Tories, some refugee negroes, and a fleet of war-vessels. 
His depredations were the talk of the camp. The Nor- 
folk region was his haunt, and thither Henry wished 
to march, but the Committee held him back, sending 
Woodford instead. This was late in November. On 
the way to Norfolk, Woodford ignored Henry until 
reminded of his remissness ; then he wrote : " When 
joined, I shall always esteem myself immediately under 
your command, and will obey accordingly ; but when 
sent to command a separate and distinct body of troops, 
under the immediate instructions of the Committee of 
Safety — whenever that body or the honorable Com- 
mittee is sitting, I look upon it as my indispensable 
duty to address my intelligence to them, as the supreme 
power in this colony." Hardly had Henry received 
this by no means *' obedient and assisting " letter, when 
news came of Woodford's victory at Great Bridge — 
'' a circumstance," says Wirt, " not very well calcu- 
lated to gild the pill of contumacy " presented to the 
Commander-in-Chief. One can imagine Henry's dis- 
tress at this time. As a good American, and as a gen- 
erous man, he was bound to rejoice in Woodford's 
victory; but, personally, it was in the nature of things 
that he should feel deep chagrin, tinctured with vexa- 
tion and resentment. He could understand why Brax- 
ton "^ might choose to harass him ; but what of Pendle- 

* In justice to Carter Braxton, let it be said that there is no 
direct evidence implicating him in an intrigue against Patrick 

221 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

ton's distrust, or assumption of distrust? He was in a 
dilemma indeed. He knew that much was expected of 
him by the people ; his reputation was at stake ; yet here 
he was, under a cross-fire, and could do nothing at all, 
while a defiant subordinate was winning glory. Every 
one was talking of the victory over Dunmore. Even 
if people laughed about black Billy Flora, whose worst 
oath was ''I'll be buttered!" and called him a hero 
for what he had done in a shower of bullets at Great 
Bridge, Henry knew that the real hero was Woodford, 
and he knew, too, that he must have it out with this 
same Woodford. Self-respect demanded such a course. 
But when he asked the Committee of Safety for a ruling 
in the matter, he saw that Pendleton was less concerned 
about giving umbrage to him than about offending the 
victorious Colonel. It was decided that while Colonel 
Woodford " ought to correspond with Colonel Henry," 
the operations should be directed by the Committee. 

That the Convention itself, then assembled at Wil- 
liamsburg, disapproved of Pendleton's course is shown 
in the vote reconstituting the Committee of Safety. In 
the ballot, Pendleton fell from first place to fourth, 
but he was still strong enough to maintain his hold of 
affairs. Perhaps his ill-will towards Henry was in- 
creased by the Convention's rebuke, for he wrote to 
W^oodford, on Christmas Eve: 

Henry. Nor has any Virginia historian intimated as much. 
The deduction is purely speculative, and is the writer's own. 
It is based upon Meredith's account of the Doncastle incident 
and upon the assumption that Braxton had his share of human 
nature. He would have been a generous man, indeed, if he 
had pocketed his grudge and played absolutely fair. Braxton 
was an " aristocrat." He had been a member of the House of 
Burgesses from 1761 to 1771, and must have been known to 
Henry. How obnoxious Henry found Braxton's " Address to 
the Convention of Virginia on the Subject of Government" will 
appear on a later page. Braxton died in 1797. 

222 



AS A SOLDIER 

" The field officers to each regiment will be named here, 
and recommended to Congress ; in case our army is taken into 
Continental pay, they will send commissions. A general officer 
will be chosen there, I doubt not, and sent us ; with that 
matter I hope we shall not intermeddle, lest it should be 
thought propriety requires our calling or rather recommend- 
ing our present first officer to the station. Believe me, sir, 
the unlucky step of calling that gentleman from our councils, 
where he was ' useful, into the field, in an important station, 
the duties of which he must, in the nature of things, be an 
entire stranger to, has given me many an anxious and uneasy 
moment. In consequence of this mistaken step, which can't 
now be retracted or remedied — for he has done nothing 
worthy of degradation and must keep his rank, we must be 
deprived of the service of some able officers, v/hose honor 
and former ranks will not suffer them to act under him in 
this juncture, when we so much need their services." 

Some one evidently addressed Washington in a like 
strain, for on March 7 he wrote to Colonel Joseph Reed : 

" I think my countrymen made a capital mistake when they 
took Henry out of the senate to place him in the field ; and 
pity it is that he does not see this, and remove every difficulty 
by a voluntary resignation." 

On the surface of this, it would seem that Washing- 
ton and Pendleton were of one mind in regard to Henry. 
Both thought him useful in the forum, useless in the 
field. Perhaps Washington was influenced by a feeling, 
common with commanders, that all was not as it should 
be in the civilian branch of delegated public power, and 
heartily desired the return of a man possessing Henry's 
good sense to the Continental Congress. But, aside 
from such a speculative interpretation of his meaning, 
was Washington well informed as to the state of affairs 
at Williamsburg? Had he heard the Henry side as 
well as the Pendleton side ? Would his reference to the 
matter have been so Hght, so unqualified, had he known 
the details of what looks like a genuine intrigue? Let 

223 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

it be said, in passing, that Pendleton had protested when 
Washington was put at the head of the armies. Why? 
Ostensibly, on the plea that a New Englander should 
be Commander-in-Chief, since the war threatened to 
be waged in New England territory; possibly, because 
he did not wish to see a Virginian elevated so high above 
another able and ambitious Virginian. As we have 
noted, Washington's knowledge of human perversity 
was keen enough to awaken in him the imps of doubt, 
but up to this time he himself had been subjected to 
no humiliation. If after his bitter experience with the 
Conway Cabal he had been told of an aflfair such as the 
Pendleton-Henry dead-lock, would he not have sym- 
pathized with the victim? Plainly, he would. Plainly, 
he knew more of the Machiavellian element in human 
nature after his encounter with Gates and Conway than 
he had known before. He too had been accused of 
military incompetence. 

In borrowing the word '' Machiavellian," perhaps we 
have gone too far. It does not sound well in America. 
There is a home-made phrase that more nearly fits the 
Pendleton-Henry case — " the freeze-out policy." It 
was certainly in use a hundred years ago, and perhaps 
in 1775. So sly were Henry's opponents that they 
induced Congress to exclude the two existing Virginia 
regiments when it voted to take over six Virginia bat- 
talions. This would have left Henry high and dry as 
an unhonored provincial officer. But the vote was 
reconsidered, and the two regiments were included. 
Then Congress commissioned Henry Colonel of the First 
Battalion, subject to the command of some unnamed 
brigadier, possibly Woodford. This was what Henry 
had awaited. He preferred to accept an affront from 
Congress rather than from Pendleton. He was ready 
now to retire, and on the 28th of February he so in- 
formed Mr. Pendleton's Committee — " frozen out." 

224 



AS A SOLDIER 

" Yesterday morning," says the Williamshiirg Gazette 
of March i, '' the troops in this city being informed that 
Patrick Henry, Esq., Commander-in-Chief of the Vir- 
ginia Forces, resigned his commission the day preced- 
ing, and was about to leave them, the whole went into 
mourning, and, under arms, waited on him at his lodg- 
ings." There they addressed him in terms of admira- 
tion, affection, sorrow. They told him that they could 
not but applaud his spirited resentment of a '' most 
glaring indignity." His reply showed an unruffled 
temper. '* I am unhappy to part with you," he said. 
" I leave the service, but I leave my heart with you. 
May God bless you, and give you success and safety, 
and make you the glorious instruments of saving our 
country." The Gazette continues: 

" After the Officers had received Colonel Henry's kind answer 
to their Address, they insisted upon his dining with them at 
the Raleigh Tavern before his departure, and after dinner a 
number of them proposed escorting him out of town, but were 
prevented by some uneasiness getting among the soldiery, 
who assembled in a tumultuous manner and demanded their dis- 
charge, and declaring their unwillingness to serve under any 
other commander. Upon which Colonel Henry found it neces- 
sary to stay a night longer in town, which he spent in visiting 
the several barracks, and used every argument in his power 
with the soldiery to lay aside their imprudent resolution, and to 
continue in the service which he had quitted from motives in 
which his honor, alone, was concerned, and that, although he 
was prevented from serving his country in a military capacity, 
yet his utmost abilities should ever be exerted for the real 
interest of the United Colonies, in support of the glorious 
cause in which they had engaged. This, accompanied with 
the extraordinary exertions of Colonel Christian and the 
other officers present, happily produced the desired effect, 
the soldiers reluctantly acquiescing." 

Imagine this scene — these incidents. No doubt Henry 
kept the night in mind a long, long while. Even after 
his return to ** Scotchtown," the soldiers continued to 
15 225 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

express their love for him and their antipathy to those 
who had forced him down. Ninety officers signed and 
sent him a round-robin, in which they declared that 
it was he who had first aroused the country, and that it 
was he who had drawn them to the standard. In camp 
his '' firmness, candor, and politeness " had obtained for 
him " the signal approbation of the wise " ; and it hurt 
them to part with him. Woodford's officers put their 
names to this testimonial, which must have gone far to 
ease the soreness of Henry's heart. In the Gazette, 
correspondents did not hesitate to attribute the outcome 
to envy. " We apprehend," wrote one, " that envy 
strove to bury in obscurity his [Henry's] martial talents. 
Fettered and confined, with only an empty title, the 
mere echo of authority, his superior abilities lay inac- 
tive, nor could be exerted for his honor or his country's 
good." 

About this time Woodford thought of resigning, and 
wrote to Pendleton on the propriety of so doing. Pen- 
dleton replied : " I am apprehensive that your resigna- 
tion will be handled to your disadvantage from a certain 
quarter, where all reputations are sacrificed for the 
sake of one ; what does it signify that he resigned with- 
out any such cause, or assigning any reason at all? It 
is not without example that others should be censured 
for what he is applauded for." There was bitterness 
in this ; and it brings us readily to a view of Pendleton's 
side of the case. It should be remembered that an 
enemy is not always a conscious enemy. There were 
thousands in Virginia who swore by their beloved 
Patrick, but there were hundreds, at least, who were 
still under the influence of the feeling that as he had 
come up of a sudden, so he would go down of a sudden. 
It suited some of them to take this view ; they thought 
themselves superior to Henry, and wished him of less 
consequence that they might be of more. Others were 

226 



AS A SOLDIER 

downright sincere in their belief that as a miUtar}^ 
man Henry was out of his element. Girardin, who 
wrote under Jefferson's eye, put it in this way : *' The 
elevation of Patrick Henry to the chief command of the 
regular colonial forces was, in the opinion of many, 
one of those hasty measures into which the efferves- 
cence of gratitude not unfrequently betrays even public 
bodies. From national councils, where his usefulness 
was pre-eminently conspicuous, that gentleman was 
called to an important military station, with the duties 
of which he must in the nature of things have been 
wholly unacquainted ; whilst, by an unhappy reaction, 
the country lost the services of some able officers whom 
the pride of former rank would not suffer to act under 
him — a loss peculiarly to be lamented in the infancy of 
an arduous struggle, at a time when Virginia counted 
only a few military characters possessed of qualifications 
necessary for doing their duty with honor to themselves 
and security to the common cause." 

But it is Hugh Blair Grigsby who makes the best 
defence of Pendleton. Grigsby would have been dis- 
tressed, indeed, if he had convinced himself that Pen- 
dleton was other than a noble-rriinded man. Every 
Fourth of July for forty years Grigsby and Robert C. 
Winthrop wrote patriotic letters to each other. With 
all their souls these patriots loved the men of the Revo- 
lution ; and this love led them to idealize the Fathers, 
among whom, in Grigsby's opinion, Pendleton stood 
well to the front. In his delightful volume, " The 
Virginia Convention of 1776," Grigsby says: 

" Nothing could show more clearly the general confidence 
reposed in him than his unanimous election by the Convention 
of July, 1775, as the head of the Committee of Safety. That 
body consisted of eleven members, was in the interval of the 
sessions of the Conventions the executive of the Colony, 
and was always in session. Its duties were of the most 
delicate, of the most perplexing, and of the most responsible 

22y 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

kind. There was no precise rule for its guidance. The ordi- 
nance which created it endowed it with enormous powers 
positive and discretionary. Its difficulties were enhanced by 
the fact that the Colony was in a state of war. The utmost 
prudence, energy, and wisdom were required in its head; and 
these qualities Pendleton possessed in an eminent degree. . . . 
One single act of the committee excited in some minds a 
prejudice against its head; and justice to the memory of Pen- 
dleton demands a passing allusion to it. . . . That Edmund 
Pendleton and Patrick Henry were enemies, I do not affirm ; 
but that they were at the head of their respective parties at 
a time when their issues involved life and death, is known 
to all. . . . Pendleton represented the great conservative 
interest of the Colony, and Henry personified the great body 
of the people, who, in all countries and in all ages, are 
opposed to the few who wield the influence of government 
for their own advantage. Their opposition began as early 
as 1765, and was renewed at intervals until Henry was elected 
Governor and Pendleton, after passing a session or two in 
the House of Delegates, was called to the Bench. To all 
who are familiar with the character of Pendleton, it must 
be obvious that political animosity could never have im- 
pelled him to seek the destruction of an opponent. . . . 
Nor could the success of Henry interfere in any respect with 
the ambition of Pendleton. , . . The success of the arms 
of the Colony was the success of his own policy. To blast 
the fame or curb the spirit of an officer under his control, 
was virtually to prevent the increase of his own renown and 
to dim the glory of his own administration. . . . To lead 
a force at that critical juncture. Colonel Woodford, Henry's 
second in command, was highly qualified. His triumphant 
success justified the foresight of the committee. ... If 
we are disposed to attribute the conduct of Pendleton and 
his associates to individual jealousy, and to a desire to ruin the 
fortunes of a dreaded rival, would they not have adopted 
an opposite course, and have despatched Henry, unacquainted 
as he was with war, through a hostile population to the 
seaboard, where the British forces, which had been recruited 
some days before by a re-inforcement of regular troops from 
St. Augustine, were ready to receive him? ... It was 
the general belief of the time that Woodford's men, had he 
been defeated, would have been given over for indiscriminate 
massacre by the black banditti which Dunmore had listed 
and armed." 

228 



AS A SOLDIER * 

This is well reasoned ; but, in spite of it, the fact 
remains that Henry was grossly abused. Nor can we 
accept a statement, " heard at second-hand " by Grigsby, 
that the real ground of the Committee's action '' was 
the want of discipline in the regiment under the com- 
mand of Colonel Henry." *' My authority," says 
Grigsby, *' is the late Colonel Clement Carrington, of 
Charlotte, son of Judge Paul Carrington. None doubted 
his [Henry's] courage, or his alacrity to hasten to the 
field ; but it was plain that he did not seem to be con- 
scious of the importance of strict discipline in the army, 
but regarded his soldiers as so many gentlemen who had 
met to defend their country, and exacted from them 
little more than the courtesy that was proper among 
equals." Judge Carrington, a member of the Committee, 
may have so informed his son ; but no charge as to 
lack of discipline was brought at the time, or during 
Henry's life. On the contrary, we have the direct 
testimony of the ninety officers, some of whom were 
experienced in war, as to Henry's " firmness " in the 
management of the troops. It is their own word, and 
discredits all second-generation and second-hand reports 
that Henry was deficient in disciplinary qualities. 

Manifestly, any defence of Pendleton must be lame. 
Whatever his motives, he went out of his way to 
further his ends. He arrogated to himself powers and 
privileges to which he had no title. In stretching 
his own authority he traversed the ordinance under 
which Henry was commissioned. The Committee was 
a creature of the Convention ; therefore the Committee, 
or Pendleton who dominated it, should have respected 
the Convention's vote whereby Henry became Com- 
mander-in-Chief. Had Henry blundered, or had he 
given signs of military incapacity, then it would have 
behooved Pendleton to wrestle with him for a throw. 
But he made no blunder. He gave no sign of incom- 

229 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

petence. Pendleton, whose methods in this instance 
were obhque, tied him up in camp. The idea that 
Henry could not be trusted to march against Dunmore 
was a gratuitous assumption. 

This leads us to ask ourselves : What sort of officer 
would Henry have made? Was he deluding himself in 
thinking that he could really make men fight to win? 
In his midnight reveries did he fondly see himself a 
soldier, striking fierce blows for freedom? Imagina- 
tive men, as we know, are apt to paint pillow-pictures, 
and at that time many an American was battling with 
the British in his dreams. Henry had numerous quali- 
ties of high soldiership. He had a mighty spirit. He 
had adaptability, balance, caution coupled with push, 
the topographical sense so useful to a soldier, the 
hunter's faculty of approach and surprise, a knack of 
leadership amounting almost to genius, and, most im- 
portant of all, that peculiar imagination which sees 
around behind an enemy — which divines his purpose, 
estimates his advantages or difficulties, and opens the 
way to elude him or checkmate him or entrap him. 
This is one side. On the other, we find him lacking in 
certain hard qualities that are of use in training and in 
handling large bodies of men. Kindness, when regu- 
lated by the military spirit, as in Robert E. Lee's case, 
is productive of good in an army, but when ill-consid- 
ered is a danger. We find him, also, especially weak in 
those many practical things connected with the science of 
war that made Drill-master Steuben strong — a strength 
which, fortunately for us, Steuben imparted to Wash- 
ington's army at Valley Forge. But, in spite of hi's 
lack of military knowledge in 1775, why should not 
Henry have been a fairly good general in 1777 or 1780? 
Greene, a civilian, had long made a study of military 
science ; but scores of officers knew as little of fighting 
as Henry did. Knox was a bookseller; Sullivan, a 

230 



AS A SOLDIER 

lawyer; Benjamin Lincoln, a farmer; "Light Horse '"* 
Harry Lee was just out of college. Why, then, should 
not Henry have done as well or better? Sumter, who 
was so tiny at birth that he could have been cradled 
in a quart pot, Marion, Putnam, Stark, and others were 
just off the farm when war began ; but they had this 
advantage — they had served as border rangers, and 
Henry had not. " That Henry," says Grigsby, " would 
not have made a better Indian fighter than Jay, or Liv- 
ingston, or the Adamses, that he might not have made 
as dashing a partizan as Tarleton or Simcoe, his friends 
might readily afford to concede; but that he evinced 
what neither Jay, nor Livingston, nor the Adamses 
did evince, a determined resolution to stake his repu- 
tation and his life on the issue of arms, and that he 
resigned his commission when the post of imminent 
danger was refused him, exhibit lucid proof that, what- 
ever may have been his ultimate fortune, he was not 
deficient in two great elements of military success : 
personal enterprise and unquestioned courage." 

But why did so sagacious and wary a man as Henry 
permit himself to take a path that led to the pit of 
humiliation? When he saw that he was coming to 
such a pit, why did he not turn upon his enemies, whip 
them off his heels, take another trail, and go on as he 
wished to go ? Henry had said, " Study men " — and 
he certainly had studied Edmund Pendleton. Often had 
they been at odds, often had they been in each other's 
thoughts at midnight ; but that was in the old times, 
and now, as Henry assumed, it was shoulder to shoulder 
and all hands forward. With war begun, he perhaps 
permitted himself to feel that there was but one enemy 
to consider. He did not bethink him of revamped 
feuds, or count upon ambushes set by co-laborers in the 
patriot cause. When at home in September, and when 
at camp during the succeeding months, he may have 

231 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

been as eager to study the art of war as he had been 
to study law. Possibly he hoped to grasp one science 
as quickly as he had grasped the other. Did Sharpe's 
" Military Guide " or Turenne's " Memoirs " make 
harder reading than '' Coke upon Littleton " ? If the 
truth could be known, we should no doubt discover that 
while Henry was encamped in rear of William and Mary 
College, he and his subordinates stripped the library 
of its war-books as thoroughly as Dunmore had stripped 
the Powder Horn of its explosives. Thus occupied, 
thus withdrawn from politics, it did not occur to him 
to safeguard himself against attack at the hands of 
those whose duty it was to assist him. When he real- 
ized the situation, he could not remedy it without 
precipitating a war of factions that would have injured 
the cause he had come to love. The soreness must 
have been deep with him; and there was much nobility 
in his unrevengefulness under chastisement. 



232 



/ 



XI 

THE TURNING-POINT HOME FOLKS AND FIRST FAMILY 

Henry was out of the army, out of Congress, out of 
public life. He was at an important turning-point in 
his career. Hence there is occasion here for a pause — 
there is opportunity to glance backward and look for- 
ward. We have seen him in the morning of his life, 
and at its meridian in St. John's Church ; hereafter we 
shall see him in its afternoon, closing with the peace- 
ful and beautiful sunset at Red Hill. 

He was now forty. Half his battle was over; half 
was to come. Hitherto he had used his genius in a 
warfare against despotic methods ; now he was to exer- 
cise his constructive and administrative talents in a 
bold attempt at practical republicanism. 

It was Pendleton who affixed the pivot upon which 
Henry swung away from national and back into provin- 
cial endeavor. In doing him the disservice set forth 
on preceding pages, Pendleton powerfully influenced 
Henry's career. Jefferson's subsequent disservice merely 
affected Henry's fame. Let it be borne in mind that 
there were now two planes of activity — the continental 
and the State. If Henry had done well as a soldier, 
he would have been acclaimed for this fresh service up 
and down the United Colonies. But whether he had 
done well or ill, at the end of the war he probably would 
have reappeared in the national councils and would have 
been a power in the Constitutional Convention. Would 
he not then have figured in closer companionship with 
Washington and Franklin, who in history dissociate 
themselves from State fame and loom large on the gen- 
eral canvas? As the Union grows, local repute is les- 

233 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

sened and continental celebrity is correspondingly mag- 
nified. It suits the writer of a general history to deal 
with general characters. Though his national work 
was cardinal in its importance, Henry remained in Vir- 
ginia from 1775 until his death. He was on the Virginia 
level — not on the continental level. Hence his fame 
has suffered somewhat at the hands of historians who 
overlook the State capitals in their wish to pitch upon 
the things that were common to the whole Union. Few 
historians do full justice to Henry's labors. 

" I am an American," he had said, in the First Con- 
gress ; and so he was, as long as he lived, but, for- 
tunately for Virginians, Pendleton and circumstances 
forced him to be more than ever a Virginian. It is too 
much to say that he lost his relish for Congressional 
life because Congress had been a party to the Pendle- 
tonian affront. He never nursed his wrath. In fact, 
we shall soon see him working shoulder to shoulder 
with the members of the Committee of Safety. His bow 
to Pendleton was no less genial than Pendleton's bow to 
him. But for some reason he had no further desire to 
cross the Potomac, and as for military ambition, that 
was a thing of the past. 

Now, it so happens that this period of change in 
Henry's public life was also identical with a time of 
change in his private life. It was doubly a turning- 
point with him; and, if we consider his lapse in health 
a little later, it was trebly such. Let us take account 
of certain facts that influenced him ; and especially let 
us get nearer to his kindred, some of whom were notable 
characters in the border romance of the Revolution. 

Henry often joked with his Hanover neighbors ; and 
perhaps he told them that he had quit camp because he 
feared lest it should become overcrowded with his own 
relatives. His brothers-in-law, Colonel William Chris- 
tian, the Indian fighter. Colonel William Campbell, 

234 



THE TURNING POINT 

afterwards the hero of King's Mountain, Colonel Valen- 
tine Wood, Colonel Thomas Madison, and Colonel 
Samuel Meredith, all saw service in the Revolution. 
Christian was devoted to Henry, and all the others were 
in close friendship with him. His brother William, too, 
was a major of militia. Writing of Patrick Henry's 
'' humorous vein," Nathaniel Pope says : 

" I have it on the testimony of Colonel Charles Dabney that 
Mr. William Henry, brother of P. H., paid the latter, when 
Governor, a visit at his palace in Williamsburg. After the 
usual salutation, the Governor, who knew his brother wore 
boots without stockings, proposed to have them taken off and 
shoes or slippers substituted. To this William pointedly ob- 
jected, observing he had as lief wear boots as shoes, and would 
not wish to be troublesome. 

" ' No trouble, brother ! I insist upon it,' replied the Gover- 
nor. 

" He then peremptorily ordered a servant to pull off the 
boots, which, with some difficulty, he effected — William still 
objecting and even making resistance; when a pair of naked 
legs and feet were displayed, to the great amusement of 
the whole company, and the no small mortification and con- 
fusion of William." 

" Colonel Christian," says William Wirt Henry, in 
writing of his grandfather's military experience, " had 
brought his wife with him to Williamsburg, and she 
took charge of her brother's headquarters. Soon their 
sister, Elizabeth Henry, joined them, and was a toast 
among the young officers. She was twenty-six years 
old, above medium height, with a most attractive face 
and imposing presence. Both in person and intellect 
she resembled her brother. She had the same fertile 
and vivid imagination, the same ready command of lan- 
guage and aptness of illustration, the same flexibility of 
voice and grace of elocution, and the same play of 
features expressive of every phase of feeling. Among 
those who brought companies to Williamsburg was 

235 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Captain William Campbell, from the Holston settlement 
in Fincastle County. He was of a superb physique, six ' 
feet two inches high, straight and soldierly in his bear- 
ing, quiet and polished in his manners, and always defer- 
ential and chivalric towards women. He had the fair 
complexion and blue eyes which betokened his Scotch 
descent. He had been associated with Colonel Christian 
in the Dunmore expedition against the Indians, and was 
destined to do his country great service in the war upon 
which they were entering. He was welcomed to the 
society of Colonel Henry's family at once, and it was 
not long before an attachment was formed between him- 
self and Elizabeth Henry, which resulted in their mar- 
riage the ensuing spring. The only child * of this mar- 

* Another child died at the age of five. Campbell's character 
is drawn in " A Sketch of the Life of Elizabeth Henry," by 
her grandson, Thomas L. Preston. Campbell's "hatred of 
Tories was a passion." One of these, knowing " dearest 
Betsy's " influence over the robust borderer, visited his house 
to beg Mrs. Campbell to intercede for him. During the inter- 
view the front door was opened, and in walked Colonel Camp- 
bell. " A glance at his face made the Tory spring from 
his seat and rush for the back door. The Colonel whipped 
out his sword, and was in the act of bringing it down with 
all the power of his strong arm upon the Tory's head, when 
Mrs. Campbell sprung forward and caught his upraised elbow. 
This made the point of the sword strike the lintel of the door, 
a?id saved the Tory's head. So powerful was the blow that 
it cut a deep gash in the hard oak lintel and bent the point 
of that celebrated ' Andrea de Ferrara.' The bend could never 
be entirely straightened, and there it remains to this day." 
General John S. Preston wore this ancestral sword in the 
Civil War. While returning from church one Sunday, in* 
1779, Campbell broke away from his party, which was mounted, 
in chase of an escaped Tory, Frank Hopkins, who leaped 
his horse from a high bank into the river. But Campbell 
spurred over the cliff after him., and sat, breast-deep, in the 
stream, holding Hopkins a prisoner, till other pursuers came. 
Later, when Colonel Campbell rejoined his wife, she eagerly 
inquired, " What did you do with him, Mr. Campbell ? " " Oh, 

236 







PATRICK henry's SISTER ELIZABETH 

(Married, first, General William Campbell ; second. General 
William Russell. In intellect and person she was her brother 
over again. Her voice " carried " like his. It rang as clear as 
a bell for iioo yards across a pond between her own house and 
her daughter's. Signals were used in replying. Her prayers 
were as eloquent as Patrick's speeches. From a pencil-sketch 
owned by Mrs. John M. Preston, Seven-Mile Ford, Va.) 



THE TURNING POINT 

riage was Sarah Buchanan, who married General 
Francis Preston. Her descendants have been remark- 
able for eloquence, the most celebrated among them 
being her oldest son, William Campbell Preston. Mrs. 
Campbell afterward married General William Russell, 
and by her talents and practical piety became known 
as the Lady Huntingdon of Virginia." 

This camp romance passed into a fireside tale in the 
South, and many who thus heard the love-story of their 
grandmother lived to become famous in literature, in 
law, or in war. One can imagine Henry's keen interest 
in the courtship. It is seen from his letters that his 
sisters were very dear to him. As for his mother, her 
sweetness of character and her contented old age were 
for a long time a balm and a benefaction to his spirit. 
Sarah Syme Henry looked about her when she grew 
gray, and saw all her children doing well. One of them, 
especially, seemed to her to be an object of pride, but 
she was so sincere in her piety that she measured Patrick 
only by the good he was doing or might do. She lived 
in Hanover with her eldest daughter, Jane, Colonel 
Meredith's wife, visiting from time to time at the homes 
of her other children. Except Sarah, who had married 
an Englishman, all were within reach. Here is her 
only existing letter, written to a friend (the wife of 
Colonel William Fleming) after her return from Bote- 
tourt, whence her son-in-law. Colonel Christian, had 
just gone against the Indians: 

"15 October, 1774. 

" Dear Madam : Kind Providence preserved me and all with 

me [Mrs. Anne Christian and her little ones] safe to our Home 

in Hanover. Here people have been very sickly, but hope 

the sickly season is nigh over. My dear Annie has been ailing 

we hung him, Betty — that's all ! " Lyman C. Draper, in 
" King's Mountain and its Heroes," tells a great deal about 
William Campbell. 

237 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

two or three days with a fever. The dear children are very- 
well. My son Patrick has gone to Philadelphia near seven 
weeks. The affairs are kept with great secrecy, nobody being 
allowed to be present. I assure you we have our lowland fears 
and troubles with respect to Great Britain. Perhaps our good 
God may bring us out of these many troubles which threaten 
us not only from the mountains but the seas. ... I am, 
dear madam, your humble servant, 

" Sarah Henry."' 

Accompanying the Merediths to a new home in 
Amherst, she lived ten years longer. In her will she 
directed that mourning rings be given to all her chil- 
dren. It was said of her that to her five talents she had 
added five. " My dear and ever honored mother died 
six or eight weeks ago," wrote Henry in the course of 
a letter to Judge Bartholomew Dandridge, " my brother 
William two weeks, and my only surviving aunt ten 
days. Thus is the last generation clearing the way for 
us, as we must shortly do for the next."* 

But in the wish to put these family portraits plainly 
before us, so that we may go on to other matters, we 
have anticipated somewhat. Reverting to " Scotch- 
town " and the spring of 1776, we find Henry under 
bereavement. He had just lost the wife of his youth — 
his good mate for twenty-one years. Sarah Shelton 
was much missed, much lamented. She had borne him 
three sons and three daughters, the eldest of whom, 
Martha, already married to Colonel John Fontaine, took 
charge of her father's household. Martha was a life- 
long favorite with him. Anne, who subsequently mar- 
ried Judge Spencer Roane, was at this time a young' 
girl, as was Elizabeth, later the wife of Philip Aylett 
and the mother of the brilliant young orator, Patrick 
Henry Aylett, a victim of the Richmond Theatre fire. 

* " Died, Rev. Patrick Henry, rector of St. Paul's Parish, in 
Hanover, April 11." — Virginia Gazette, 1777. 

238 



THE TURNING POINT 

" Scotchtown " house still stands. No architect who 
is interested in colonial structures but would delight to 
'* restore " it ; and perhaps we too should find some 
pleasure in attempting to bring it back to mind just as 
it was when Patrick Henry lived there. He had been 
familiar with this part of Hanover since his boyhood ; 
" Mount Brilliant " was only a morning's ride away ; 
and in going to and from the Forks church with his 
mother, he had frequently passed along the county road 
which skirts the *' Scotchtown " plantation. The big 
brick Forks church looks as though a century and a 
half had merely solidified it, and some of the trees that 
stood then stand now. To the south a few miles runs 
the South Anna River, and to the north the North 
Anna, both streams clear in dry weather, but red and 
rapid when rains drench the rolling land. The hilly 
roads are red. Rocks abound ; and there is much 
romance in the leap of waters, the beautiful foliage on 
the high banks of the streams, and the general aspect 
of a region rich in hills, ravines, forests, and pleasant 
fields. But there is a sudden slipping down from high 
romance when we learn the name of the Patrick Henry 
neighborhood. It is '' Negrofoot." Negrofoot road 
was the one followed by Henry in his Louisa County 
pilgrimages. Back of the name is a grim tale that has 
caused many a child to cuddle down under the bed- 
clothes and cover up its head. There was a black man, 
new come from Africa, and he seemed particularly fond 
of a certain baby. He fed the baby fat. And still he 
fattened it. . . . By and by this negro's foot was 
seen staked as a warning on the highway. It was the 
first known instance of cannibalism in Virginia, and it 
was likewise the last, for the vengeful news of the 
spiked foot spread from plantation to plantation, and 
the strange sign was talked of near and far. 

It was a Scotchman, Colonel Chiswell, who built 

239 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

" Scotchtown," with its hall, its mills, its storehouses, 
and its cabins. Around him were his thousand acres. 
He liked broad spaces indoors as well as out. From 
the stone-paved floor of his front porch he had a sweep- 
ing view towards the north, and from a similar porch 
on the south side, with its flagged steps leading down, 
he could treat his eye to a stretch of green fields bor- 
dered by forest trees ; for he had pitched this queer old- 
world house on a broad-topped hill gently sloping in 
every direction. He had built a hall-like frame structure 
of extraordinary length, with a basement that contained 
a " dungeon " ; above the basement he had arranged 
eight large rooms, opening into a wide passage, and 
above these an immense garret, which, if unpartitioned 
then as it is now, was spacious enough to accommodate 
all the dancers in Hanover. There were doors of 
walnut, and the hall and living-rooms were panelled 
in walnut from floor to ceiling. There were corner 
fireplaces, with marble mantels and marble fronts, show- 
ing fluted columns. From this lordly lodge in the 
wilderness, where in later years lived Sarah Gary, who 
gave up her jewels to the patriot cause, where Dolly 
Payne Madison's childhood was spent, and where a 
certain terrible Mr. Forsythe is said to have chained 
his wife in the " dungeon " — though in our souls we 
believe it was a sweet-potato pit — the gallant Colonel 
Chiswell was accustomed to ride in his coach down 
Negrofoot road to Williamsburg, where, in the season, 
he enjoyed the companionship of the bloods. But, as 
the story goes, in a quarrel at table he killed a man, and 
became a convict.* 

* Apparently this " Scotchtown " Chiswell is identical with 
the Colonel Chiswell who attempted unsuccessfully to extract 
silver from lead ore in Wythe County. Howe says : " He 
killed a man in a quarrel and died in prison." Doubtless, Fort 
Chiswell took his name. 

240 



THE TURNING POINT 

Henry next owned the place ; then Gary ; then Payne. 
In the " Memoirs and Letters of Dolly Madison " we 
have a pleasing- bit about " Scotchtown." Note the 
reference to the number of rooms, which would indicate 
that the garret aforementioned was cut up into cham- 
bers. " Towards the close of her life," says the 
" Memoirs," " Mrs. Madison frequently recalled the 
home of her childhood, dwelling upon the great black 
marble mantelpieces, supported by white figures. The 
house . . . was surrounded by a number of small 
brick houses, attached to the main building, which was 
very large, having as many as twenty rooms on a floor. 
. . . The little country school to which Dolly wended 
her way for the first twelve years was of the simplest 
description. Equipped with a white linen mask to keep 
every ray of sunshine from the complexion, a sun- 
bonnet sewed on her head every morning by her careful 
mother, and long gloves covering the hands and arms, 
one can see the prim little figure starting off for school, 
with books under her arm, and the dear but wicked 
baubles safely hidden beneath the severely plain Quaker 
dress." Her parents were Friends, but her grand- 
mother, once a great beauty and belle, was not ; and 
this worldly grandmother had given her the " wicked 
baubles " — otherwise some charming old jewels — which 
Dolly surreptitiously kept in a bag. " Almost the first 
grief of her childhood," adds the " Memoirs," " was 
the loss of this precious bag, discovered in school, after 
a long ramble through the woods, during which the 
string must have become unfastened, scattering the 
treasure where days of searching proved of no avail." 

" Scotchtown " commended itself to Henry for his 
ailing wife's sake, because it was reputed to be healthy, 
and for the sake of their children, because it gave them a 
playground where they could start a deer, swim, angle, 
shoot, ride, and occasionally track a bear. 
i6 241 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

, " In the management of children," says Colonel Mere- 
dith, " Mr. Henry seemed to think the most important 
thing" is in the first place to give them good constitu- 
tions. They were six or seven years old before they 
were permitted to wear shoes, and thirteen or fourteen 
before they were confined to books or received any kind 
of literary instruction. In the meantime they were as 
wild as young colts, and permitted to run quite at large. 
He seemed to think that nature ought to be permitted 
to give and show its own impulse, and that then it is 
our duty to pursue it. His children were on the most 
familiar footing with him, and he treated them as com- 
panions and friends." * " Mr. Meredith's statement is 
in a great measure true," comments Judge Roane, hus- 
band of one of these Scotchtown girls, '' but they were 
sent to school before thirteen or fourteen. I have 
thought Mr. Henry was not sufficiently attentive to the 
education of his children, which I ascribed to the great 
facility with which he acquired his own education." 

Scattered about " Scotchtown " plantation were cabins 
enough to shelter thirty slaves, who did the farm-work, 
mill-work, and much of the housework. It was an 
independent community with a life of its own ; and if 
Patrick Henry's sons — John, William, and Edward — 
did not have many friends among the black people, they 
differed from most of the plantation-bred boys of their 
day and generation. John, in time, had a family of 
his ov/n ; but not so William ; and Edward — the 
*' Neddv " of affectionate references in his father's 



* " His brother-in-law, Colonel Thomas Madison," says Judge 
W. H. Cabell, " gave me information as to his conduct to his 
children. Colonel Madison could not refrain from laughing 
when he described the appearance and manners of his sons 
before they arrived at the age of 14 — bareheaded, barefooted, 
hallooing and whooping about the plantation in every direction, 
and as rough as nature left them." 

242 



THE TURNING POINT 

letters — died in his youth. The daughters became the 
mothers of distinguished men. Henry seems to have 
trained his girls with especial care. His letter to Anne 
when she married Spencer Roane is an Eighteenth 
Century model of its kind. The light it throws upon 
his own character adds to its interest. It runs: 

"My Dear Daughter : You have just entered into that 
state which is replete with happiness or misery. The issue 
depends upon that prudent, amiable, uniform conduct which 
wisdom and virtue so strongly recommend on the one hand, 
or on that imprudence which a want of reflection or passion 
may prompt on the other. 

" You are allied to a man of honor, of talents, and of an 
open, generous disposition. You have, therefore, in your power 
all the essential ingredients of happiness ; it cannot be marred, 
if you now reflect upon that system of conduct which you 
ought invariably to pursue — if you now see clearly the path 
from which you will resolve never to deviate. Our conduct 
is often the result of whim or caprice — often such as will 
give us many a pang, unless we see beforehand what is 
always the most praiseworthy, and the most essential to 
happiness. 

*' The first maxim which you should impress upon your 
mind is never to attempt to control your husband, by opposi- 
tion, by displeasure, or any other mark of anger. A man of 
sense, of prudence, of warm feelings, cannot, and will not, 
bear an opposition of any kind which is attended with an 
angry look or expression. The current of his affections is 
suddenly stopped ; his attachment is weakened ; he begins to 
•feel a mortification the most pungent; he is belittled in his 
own eyes ; and be assured that the wife who once excites those 
sentiments in the breast of a husband will never regain the 
high ground which she might and ought to have retained. 
When he marries her, if he be a good man, he expects from 
her smiles, not frowns ; he expects to find her one who is 
not to control him — not to take from him the freedom of 
acting as his own judgment shall direct, but one who will 
place such confidence in him as to believe that his prudence is 
his best guide. Little things, that in reality are mere trifles 
in themselves, often produce bickerings and even quarrels. 
Never permit them to be a subject of dispute; yield them with 
pleasure, with a smile of affection. Be assured, one difference 

243 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

outweighs them all a thousand, or ten thousand, times. A 
difference with your husband ought to be considered as the 
greatest calamity — as one that is to be studiously guarded 
against; it is a demon which must never be permitted to 
enter a habitation where all should be peace, unimpaired con- 
fidence, and heartfelt affection. Besides, what can a woman 
gain by her opposition or her indifference? Nothing, But 
she loses everything; she loses her husband's respect for her 
virtues, she loses his love, and with that, all prospect of 
future happiness. She creates her own misery, and then 
utters idle and silly complaints, but utters them in vain. 

" The love of a husband can be retained only by the high 
opinion which he entertains of his wife's goodness of heart, 
of her amiable disposition, of the sweetness of her temper, 
of her prudence, of her devotion to him. Let nothing upon 
any occasion ever lessen that opinion. On the contrary, it 
should augment every day ; he should have much more reason 
to admire her for those excellent qualities which will cast a 
lustre over a virtuous woman whose personal attractions are 
no more. . . . 

" Cultivate your mind by the perusal of those books which 
instruct while they amuse. Do not devote much of your time 
to novels. . . . History, geography, poetry, moral essays, 
biography, travels, sermons, and other well-written religious 
productions will not fail to enlarge your understanding, to 
render you a more agreeable companion, and to exalt your 
virtue. 

" Mutual politeness between the most intimate friends is 
essential to that harmony which should never be broken or 
interrupted. How important, then, it is between man and 
wife ! . . . I will add that matrimonial happiness does 
not depend upon wealth ; no, it is not to be found in wealth, but 
in minds properly tempered and united to our respective 
situations. Competency is necessary. All beyond that is 
ideal. . . . 

" In the management of your domestic concerns, let pru- 
dence and wise economy prevail. Let neatness, order, and- 
judgment be seen in all your different departments. Unite 
liberality with a just frugality; always reserve something for 
the hand of charity ; and never let your door be closed to the 
voice of suffering humanity. Your servants especially will 
have the strongest claim upon your charity; let them be well 
I fed, well clothed, nursed in sickness, and let them never be 
unjustly treated." 

244 



THE TURNING POINT 

It is a tradition among the Henry negroes, who now 
for the most part dwell in the Staunton River country, 
that their grandparents were treated just as Patrick 
Henry here admonishes his daughter to treat them. 
But it may be said : How could Henry find it in him 
to hold slaves? How inconsistent that this champion 
of freedom should be a party to the vassalage of human 
beings ! Liberty was the key-note of all his political 
acts. What incongruity, therefore, have we here ! 
How did Henry reconcile his combative advocacy of 
the rights of man with his own petty overlordship of 
men? There is a dampening paradox in the matter; 
we do not like it ; our tender modern feelings are hurt. 
V/e who know very well that terrible evils exist to-day, 
and that we enjoy our dinners in spite of these evils, 
are disposed to blame Henry. We do not blame Wash- 
ington and other worthies on this score quite so much ; 
but then, they were less fervid in their utterances. It 
seems to comport with the character of Washington 
that he should have held slaves. Besides, as Henry 
Lee said of him : " He moves in his own orbit." But 
slave-holding does not harmonize with Henry's char- 
acter. In Patrick Henry's case we see an incongruity, 
forgetting that the incongruity is due to vast changes 
wrought in custom, and is in no wise chargeable to the 
man himself. 

In point of fact, Henry's record on slavery is admir- 
able. His opinion of it w^as well voiced by the Rev. 
Jonathan Boucher, a plain-spoken man, afterwards 
Vicar of Epsom, in Surrey, England, who at Bray's, 
in Hanover, as early as 1763, told the people from the 
pulpit that slavery was an economic drawback and an 
evil. " I am far from recommending it to you at once 
to set all the slaves free," he said, " because to do so 
would be a heavy loss to you and probably no gain to 
them ; but I do entreat you to make them some amends 

245 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

for the drudgery of their bodies by cultivating their 
minds." He advocated gradual emancipation, adding: 
" The free labor of a free man who is regularly hired 
and paid for the work he does, and only for what he 
does, is in the end cheaper than the eye-service of a 
slave." Henry and others tried to stop the importation 
of slaves. But all laws passed to that end were dis- 
allowed by the King of England, who drew a revenue 
from the business. First break the hold of the King, 
argued Henry ; after that, let other reforms be insti- 
tuted. " The disadvantages from the great number of 
slaves may perhaps wear off," he wrote, " when the 
present stock and their descendants are scattered through 
the immense deserts in the West. To re-export them 
is now impracticable, and sorry I am for it." 

If Henry looked out towards Chestnut Street when 
he was in Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, as a member 
of the First Continental Congress, his glance must have 
rested upon a notable dwelling known as the Benezet 
house. Here lived a Frenchman who saw how good it 
would be for America if slavery could be destroyed. 
He wrote a book to that effect ; Robert Pleasants sent 
a copy of the book to Henry, and Henry's letter 
acknowledging the courtesy is now in the possession 
of Mrs. Matthew Bland Harrison, at Red Hill. It reads : 

" Hanover, Jany I8*^ 1773. 
" Dear Sir. 

" I take this Oppertunity to acknowledge y* receit of An- 
thony Benezets Book against the Slave Trade. I thank you 
for it. It is not a little surprising that Christianity, whose 
chief excellence consists in softening the human Heart, in 
cherishing & improving its finer Feelings, should encourage 
a Practice so totally repugnant to the first Impressions of right 
& wrong: what adds to the wonder is, that this abominable 
Practice has been introduced in the most enlightened Ages. 
Times that seem to have pretentions to boast of high Improve- 
ments in the Arts, Sciences & refined Morality, have brought 

246 



THE TURNING POINT 

into general Use, & guarded by many Laws, a Species of 
Violence & Tyranny, which our more rude and barbarous, 
but more honest Ancestors detested; is it not amazing, that 
at a time when the rights of Humanity are defined & under- 
stood with precision in a Country above all others fond of 
Libert}' : that in such an Age and such a Country, we find 
Men, professing a Religion the most humane, mild, meek, 
gentle & generous, adopting a Principle as repugnant to human- 
ity, as it is inconsistant with the Bible & destructive to Lib- 
erty. — 

** Every thinking honest Man rejects it in Speculation, how 
few in Practice from consciencious Motives? The World in 
general has denied your People a share of its Honours, but 
the Wise will ascribe to you a just Tribute of Virtuous Praise, 
for the Practice of a train of Virtues among which your dis- 
agreement to Slavery will be principally ranked. 

" I cannot but wish well to a People, whose System imitates 
the Example of him whose Life was perfect. — And believe 
me I shall honour the Quakers for their noble Effort to abolish 
Slavery. It is equally calculated to promote moral & political 
Good. — 

" Would any one believe that I am Master of Slaves of my 
own purchase ! I am drawn along by y^ general Inconvenience 
of living without them; I will not, I cannot justify it. How- 
ever culpable my Conduct, I will so far pay my devoir to Vir- 
tue, as to own the excellence & rectitude of her Precepts & to 
lament my want of conformity to them. — 

" I believe a time will come when an oppertunity will be 
offered to abolish this lamentable Evil. — Every thing we can 
do, is to improve it if it happens in our day, if not, let us trans- 
mit to our descendants together with our Slaves a pity for 
their unhappy Lot, and an abhorrence for Slavery. — 

" If we cannot reduce this wished for Reformation to practice, 
let us treat the unhappy Victims with lenity, it is the furthest 
advance we can make towards Justice. It is a debt we owe to 
the purity of our Religion to shew that it is at variance with 
that law which warrants Slavery. ... I exhort you to per- 
severe in so worthy a resolution ; some of your People disagree 
or at least are lukewarm in the abolition of Slavery. Many 
treat the Resolution of your Meeting with ridicule : and among 
those who throw contempt on it are Clergymen, whose surest 
Guard against both Ridicule & Contempt is a certain Act of 
Assembly. 

'' I know not when to stop. I would say many things on this 

247 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Subject, a serious review of which gives a gloomy perspective 
to future times. Excuse this scrawl & believe me with 
esteem, 

" Y^ hbl. Servt, 

" Patrick Henry, jun^ 
" Robert Pleasants/' 

If Henry had manumitted his slaves, and had led in 
an abolition movement, what would have happened? 
He might have triumphed in the end, but the likelihood 
is that he would have failed, and would have brought 
mischief, instead of strength, into the grand general 
movement for American autonomy. One thing at a 
time is the part of common-sense — especially when that 
thing involves a matter of such magnitude as the birth 
of a nation. Patrick Henry's battle was to prevent 
what he regarded as the enslavement of the white people 
of the new world. His discernment was not at fault 
when it told him that the black people must wait. It 
was a " gloomy perspective " ; but the hour had not 
come to attempt the overthrow of the domestic evil. 

Many Virginians besides Boucher and Henry agreed 
with Benezet. This was especially so after reflective 
minds had become imbued with Henry's thoughts, and 
their own answering thoughts, upon the inviolability of 
individual rights. Concurrently with the demand for 
political freedom arose the demand for religious liberty ; 
and soon Jefferson successfully attacked the law of 
entail. Disenthralment was the order of the age. Men 
talked of great movements ; and some felt that black 
bondage would go by the board before the end of the 
century. Perhaps it would have gone by the board but 
for one enormous happening — the French Revolution. 
The American Revolution did much to bring on the 
Revolution in France, and this, in turn, reacted upon 
America. On a later page we shall attempt to show 
how the reaction affected Henry's politics ; it is enough 

248 



THE TURNING POINT 

here to say that it interrupted some generous and noble 
movements, and among them that for manumission. 

Henry, the '' half-Quaker," as Roger Atkinson called 
him, was no hero in the matter of slavery; but another 
owner of " Scotchtown," an out-and-out Quaker, did 
the heroic thing, and paid a dear price for the dole of 
glory given him by a neglectful world. This was John 
Payne, father of Mrs. Madison. His conscience troubled 
him; like Warner Mifflin, who was the first of the 
Friends to manumit black people, the Hanover Quaker 
gave all his slaves their liberty — moved to Philadelphia, 
failed, sank under his troubles, and died a heart-broken 
man. 

At this pivotal period there was a break in Henry^s 
health. In the summer and fall of 1776, malarial fever 
kept him in bed at " Scotchtown " for several weeks. 
We hear much of the ague, or " chills and fever," in 
connection with the Virginia lowlands. The contrast 
between the sallow skin of the tidewater people and 
the ruddy faces of the mountaineers was remarked by 
the Marquis de Chastellux, a wholesome-minded 
Frenchman, one of the Forty Immortals, who loved 
America, who liked to travel here, and who knew what 
not to see and say as well as what to set forth in his 
charming pages. These pages go far to prove that the 
Eighteenth Century quill had more flexibility than the 
modern pen ; but, however that may be, there was 
much flexibility, much grace, much wit, in our ally^s 
letters — even if he did make the rabbits of Patrick 
Henry's country climb trees. Parts of lower Hanover 
are underlaid with a stratum of blue clay, which holds 
water as in a basin. This water stagnates, showing a 
green scum. Or it evaporates, and at times white mists 
arise. McClellan's men could not throw off the malarial 
enemy that enveloped them in the Chickahominy region, 
and they fell in thousands under its noiseless night 

249 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

assaults. Even acclimated dwellers in the low parts 
eat quinine out of the hand as they do sugar. Henry 
had no quinine. In that day rum with red pepper, 
rum with garlic, rum with many other ingredients, took 
its place. But the malarial country has its lush beauty 
when it comes to trees, vines, and flowers, and the 
enemy dies at the first touch of frost. Therefore the 
Hanover lowlands were braved by the colonial settlers, 
and even the " chills " seemed to be good in that they 
gave excuse for importing more Madeira, and more 
Madeira still. 

Apparently Henry was never quite so sure of his 
health after this attack as he had been prior to his 
prostration. He longed for the mountains — the wilder- 
ness. There was a great deal of Daniel Boone's nature 
in him. So, though he loved Hanover, he soon left 
the north side for the south side of the James. Once 
he contemplated a return to his native county ; but he 
moved in another direction, and hereafter we are to 
find him identified with the south-western parts of 
Virginia. " He had a real talent in making bargains," 
wrote Spencer Roane. " Scotchtown " had cost him 
but £600. How he sold it is thus mentioned in the 
narrative of Nathaniel Pope : 

" I have been informed that Mr. Henry advanced his Fortune 
very considerably by an advantageous sale of his seat in Han- 
over called ' Scotchtown ' to Colonel Wilson Miles Gary, when 
a number of wealthy citizens from the neighborhood of 
Williamsburg and York, apprehending danger from the enemy, 

j removed to this county and very much enhanced the price of. 

L-Und/' 



250 



XII 

AS A CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMAN 

Hardly had Henry got rid of his uniform and looked 
around awhile among his neighbors, when the appre- 
ciative freeholders of Hanover delegated him to go with 
his half-brother, Syme, to the Convention then soon to 
be held. It was clear that vital happenings must hinge 
upon the acts of this Convention ; hence contests for 
seats therein enlivened some of the court-house greens. 
Independence was the leading issue. Charlotte County 
was urgent and specific in its demand for an immediate 
declaration, thus voicing a fresh and fiery sentiment 
as wide-spread as the Union itself. 

Henry's own position on independence was peculiar. 
Remembering his prophetic utterance about it at Colonel 
Overton's two years before, we have his personal, but 
not his public, opinion. At heart he was like Samuel 
Adams, and like John ; but, unlike John Adams, he 
was guarded in his expressions. " It is questionable," 
writes Herbert Friedenwald, in his " Declaration of 
Independence," " whether such avowed radicals as John 
and Samuel Adams, Jefferson and Patrick Henry, would 
have advocated independence in earnest at this time 
(1774), nad the opportunity been favorable. To speak 
loosely, as they did, to the effect that if matters did not 
take a turn for the better, independence was the inevit- 
able outcome, was far different from establishing a 
definite, concerted plan having that aim in view. They 
were too skilled as politicians to be the upholders of 
a policy that would have damned at the outset the 
cause into which they had thrown themselves body and 
soul." Time must pass, and changes must come; and 

251 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

time did pass. Two years later, speaking of " inveterate 
prejudices and long-established systems," John Win- 
throp said : *' Perhaps it may be best to accomplish this 
great affair [independence] by slow and almost imper- 
ceptible steps, and not, per saltmn, by one violent exer- 
tion." So Henry thought ; and in no other matter con- 
nected with the progress of the Revolution was he so 
downright Fabian. Indeed, he seems to have permitted 
himself to get into one of those reflux currents common 
to strategic thinkers. Is it allowable to say that near 
him at this time, also rowing with too nice a stroke, 
was John Dickinson, who wished '' things to be delib- 
erately rendered firm at home and favorable abroad " 
before a declaration should be made? In Dickinson's 
view, the erection of an independent republic would be 
a phenomenon in the world ; " its effects would be 
immense, and might vibrate round the globe." Why 
not at least wait until France should express herself? 
An agent had been sent to Versailles to sound his Most 
Christian Majesty on the subject. Would it not be dis- 
courteous to precipitate action before his answer should 
come? Dickinson's opposite in character, General 
Charles Lee, who affected to love dogs because they 
were faithful and despise men because they were not, 
wrote from Williamsburg to Richard Henry Lee: 

" Pendleton is certainly naturally a man of sense, but I can 
assure you that the other night, in a conversation I had with 
him on the subject of independence, he talked or rather stam- 
mer'd nonsense that would have disgraced the lips of an old 
midwife drunk with bohea tea and gin. . . . For God's 
sake, why do you daudle in the Congress so strangely — why do 
you not at once declare yourselves a separate independent 
State? ... I wish you wou'd kuff Doctor Rush for not 
writing." 

General Lee called on Patrick Henry, and next day 
wrote to him: 

252 



AS A CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMAN 

"The objection you made yesterday, if I understood you 
rightly, to an immediate declaration, was, by many degrees, 
the most specious — indeed, it is the only tolerable one — I have 
yet heard. You say, and with great justice, that we ought pre- 
viously to have felt the pulse of France and Spain. . . . 
Your idea that they [the French] may be diverted from a line 
of policy which assures them such immense and permanent 
advantages by an oflfer of partition from Great Britain, appears 
to me, if you will excuse the phrase, an absolute chimera." 

Possibly this *' chimera " had been put into Henry's 
head by Richard Henry Lee. The two friends fre- 
quently unbosomed themselves to each other, and their 
letters .were filled with patriotic confidences. Of the 
pending Convention, R. H. Lee WTote : " Ages yet 
unborn, and millions existing at present, must rue or 
bless that Assembly, on which their happiness or misery 
will so eminently depend." He wished Virginia to take 
the lead, rouse Amicrica, and set up a model government. 
America should first declare independence, and then 
seek alliances. Otherwise European nations w^ould not 
budge. '' Honor, dignity, and the customs of states 
forbid, them until we take rank as an independent 
people." Henry replied : " Your sentiments as to the 
necessary progress of this great affair correspond with 
mine. For may not France ... be allured by 
the partition you mention? To anticipate, therefore, 
the efforts of the enemy by sending instantly American 
Ambassadors to France seems to me absolutely neces- 
sary. . . . But is not a confederacy of our States 
previously necessary?" In a letter to John Adams, 
Henry said : 

" Excuse me for telling you of what I think of immense 
importance ; 'tis to anticipate the enemy at the French Court. 
The half of our Continent offered to France may induce her 
to aid our destruction, which she certainly has the power to 
accomplish. I know the free trade with all the States would 
be more beneficial to her than any territorial possessions she 

253 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

might acquire. But pressed, allured, as she will be — but, above 
all, ignorant of the great things we mean to offer, may we not 
lose her? The consequence is dreadful. Excuse me again. 
The Confederacy! That must precede an open declaration of 
independency and foreign alliances. Would it not be sufficient 
to confine it, for the present, to the objects of offensive and 
defensive nature, and a guaranty of the respective colonial 
rights? If a minute arrangement of things is attempted . . . 
you may split and divide ; certainly will delay the French 
alliance, which with me is everything." 

We who at this day read of the anxieties of these 
Revolutionary pilots are apt to misjudge them, smiling 
at what seems to be their supersubtlety — their needless 
fear. It is 1776, and we wonder why so much pother 
should be made over independence, which, in our minds, 
was a foregone conclusion as long ago as Lexington. 
But the truth is that few Americans thought of inde- 
pendence until the bloodshed at and after Bunker 
Hill had solemnized them into grimness. Then it was 
that men of the character of General Greene realized 
that the States must declare themselves free, *' and call 
upon the world, and the great God who governs it, to 
witness the necessity, propriety, and rectitude thereof." 
But even Bunker Hill was insufficient to obliterate the 
idea that America would ultimately return to British 
allegiance. Even the "Act declaring the Colonists out 
of the King's protection " — which John Adams wittily 
called a British Declaration of American Independence 
— w^as insufficient. It was a sudden and unpreconcerted 
conflux of events that intensified the issue, making it 
paramount in the public mind. With the New Year, 
Washington unfurled the Union flag. On the 7th of 
January, Congress heard of the King's war speech and 
the threat to vise Hessian troops ; on the 8th, it learned 
of the arrival of British reinforcements and of the 
burning of Norfolk ; on the loth, it became aware of 
the presence in the city of something as noiseless in its 

2S4 



AS A CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMAN 

approach as the snow-flakes that fell around Inde- 
pendence Hall. This was Thomas Paine's pamphlet, 
" Common Sense." " In the course of this winter," 
writes John Adams, " appeared a phenomenon in Phila- 
delphia, a disastrous meteor; I mean Thomas Paine." 
Then Adams ungenerously proceeds to belittle Paine; 
but whatever Paine's personality, it is a simple truth 
that his " Common Sense " quickened the mind of the 
people throughout America and helped more than any- 
thing else to bring on the Declaration. The man for 
whom General Lee bespoke a " kuff," Dr. Benjamin 
Rush, says of Paine : " He wrote his ' Common Sense ' 
at my request. . . . He read the sheets to me at my 
house as he composed them. . . . Mr. Paine pro- 
posed to call it ' Plain Truth.' I objected to it, and sug- 
gested the title of * Common Sense.' . . . The 
author and the printer (Robert Bell) were immediately 
brought together, and ' Common Sense ' burst from the 
press of the latter in a few days, with an effect which 
has rarely been produced by types and paper in any age 
or country." Turning the pages of John H. Hazleton's 
" Declaration of Independence," one sees multitudes of 
allusions to it in letters of the time. Recalling a patri- 
otic pun of 'yG, it began to be popular to have " a Paine 
in the head." Most people accepted the final sentence 
in " Common Sense " as their own conclusion : " Until 
an independence is declared, the Continent will feel 
itself like a man who continues putting off some unpleas- 
ant business from day to day, yet knows it must be 
done, hates to set about it, and is continually haunted 
with the thoughts of its necessity." 

If Henry were marking time for caution's sake, he 
might now step forward. The people were coming up 
abreast of him. If he had slipped into a state of dubi- 
tation while pondering over the logical order of events 
— union, alliance, avowal of nationality — it was time 

255 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

for him to make light of these things, to regain his 
swing, his daring, his spirit of leadership. 

The fifth, the final, and by all odds the most famous 
Virginia Convention met in the Hall of the House of 
Burgesses at Williamsburg on the 6th of May. The 
Capitol was crowded. Looking down from the gallery, 
the fair patriots who packed it saw one hundred and 
twenty-eight representative men — the pick of all the 
counties. As a rule, they were tall men ; but one who 
would appear in a few days was called '' the great little 
Mr. Madison." Do the older gladiators glance at the 
striplings when they enter the arena? If so, Henry's 
prescience must have made him look hard at this young 
man of twenty-five. By the same token, he should have 
looked at another — Edmund Randolph, twenty-three, 
six feet tall, " the most promising scion of a stock which 
had been from time immemorial foremost in the colony." 
A few of the men were clad in velvet, with powdered 
wigs ; but homespun and buckskin were the rule. John 
Esten Cooke, writing of this same assembly, says that 
Henry " wore buckskin short clothes, yarn stockings, 
and a wig without powder." Some of the delegates, 
as Grigsby notes, clung to the cocked hat; some held 
hunting caps in their hands ; others more airily twirled 
their London conicals. Madison was left bareheaded 
by the theft of his conical hat from the hall of a Wil- 
liamsburg house where he was visiting, and knew not 
where to get another. Swords were out of fashion, but 
it was war-time and many of the delegates from the 
upper counties were armed. 

In looking down from the gallery, it was seen that no 
one sat in the red-curtained chair on the dais. Peyton 
Randolph, its customary occupant, was dead. Colonel 
Richard Bland, almost blind from age and much study, 
realized that the seat needed to be filled ; so, rising, he 
nominated his friend Pendleton. Archibald Cary, 

256 



AS A CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMAN 

another supporter of Pendleton as against Henry, 
seconded the nomination. Now, Henry had decided to 
let by-gones be by-gones ; and he had determined not 
to antagonize Pendleton, seeing that the work of the 
Convention was to be constructive, and that unity of 
action was a prerequisite to success. To him the Com- 
mittee of Safety was a failure. Better government was 
needed. But he could not control certain spirits in the 
Convention. " Up to this moment," says Grigsby, 
" although much dissatisfaction with the conduct of the 
Committee of Safety had been expressed privately and 
in print, it was not certainly known that there would 
be a formal contest for the chair. But all doubt was 
instantly dispelled when Johnson of Louisa appeared 
on the floor. The county from which he came, the 
very name which he bore, settled the question. It was 
the county of Louisa which Henry represented when 
he offered his resolutions against the Stamp Act. 
. . . Of all the opponents of the party of Pendleton 
for the past ten years, the Johnsons were the most ardent 
and uncompromising. They were men of fierce tem- 
perament, and were utterly fearless in the expression 
of their opinions. As a friend of Henry, Thomas 
Johnson felt acutely the indignity with which it was 
urged he had been treated by the Committee of Safety, 
and he was unwilling that Pendleton, whom he held 
bound for the action of the Committee, and who was 
then at its head, should so soon receive so signal a 
mark of public favor. He proposed Thomas Ludwell 
Lee for the chair, and was sustained by Bartholomew 
Dandridge. But here, as throughout a life protracted 
far beyond the limit of the Psalmist, and spent to its 
latest hour in the public service, the fortunate star of 
Pendleton prevailed. He was reelected." Grigsby 
further notes '' the scrupulous care " with which Pen- 
dleton, in his address of thanks, *' kept out of sight 
17 257 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

the subject of independence, which he well knew the 
party of Henry intended to bring forward." 

" The party of Henry " was never better led than 
now. It cooperated with Pendleton in all pressing mat- 
ters, and did not raise its voice for independence until 
the 14th of May, when the delegates were free to give 
the measure their full and solemn consideration. Then, 
in Committee of the Whole, at Henry's request, Gen- 
eral Thomas Nelson introduced some " rough resolu- 
tions " (still preserved, in Henry's handwriting) en- 
joining the Virginia delegates in Congress " to procure 
an immediate, clear, and full Declaration of Indepen- 
dency." The preamble gave the reasons. Two other 
sets of resolutions were offered, each declaring Vir- 
ginia independent, but omitting any reference to Con- 
gress. Finally, during the debate, which lasted two 
days, Pendleton put together a set of fresh resolves, 
and on the 15th these were adopted without dissent. 
The Virginia delegates in Congress were " instructed 
to propose to that respectable body to declare the United 
Colonies free and independent States." Under the same 
resolves, a committee was appointed to prepare a 
Declaration of Rights and frame a government for 
Virginia. Young Randolph, who must have followed 
the proceedings with the keenest interest, says : 

" When the disposition of the peoples as exhibited by their 
representatives could not be mistaken, Henry had the full 
indulgence of his own private judgment, and he concerted with 
Nelson that he (Nelson) should introduce the question of 
independence, and that he (Henry) should enforce it. Nelson 
affected nothing of oratory, except what ardent feelings might 
inspire, and, characteristic of himself, he had no fears of his 
own with which to temporize, and supposing that others ought 
to have none, he passed over the probabilities of foreign aid, 
stepped lightly on the difficulties of procuring military stores 
and the inexperience of officers and soldiers, but pressed a 
Declaration of Independence upon what with him were incon- 

258 



AS A CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMAN 

trovertible grounds; that we were oppressed, had humbly 
supplicated a redress of grievances which had been refused 
with insult, and that to return from battle against the sovereign 
with the cordiality of subjects was absurd. It was expected 
that a Declaration of Independence would certainly be passed, 
and for obvious reasons Mr. Henry seemed allotted to crown 
his political conduct with this supreme stroke. And yet for a 
considerable time he talked of the subject as critical, but 
without committing himself to a pointed avowal in its favor 
or a pointed repudiation of it. He thought that a course which 
put at stake the lives and fortunes of the people should appear 
to be their own act, and that he ought not to place upon 
the responsibility of his own eloquence a revolution of which 
the people might be wearied after the present stimulus should 
cease to operate. But after some time he appeared in an 
element for which he was born. To cut the knot which calm 
prudence was puzzled to untie was worthy of the magnificence 
of his genius. He entered into no subtlety of reasoning, but 
was aroused by the now apparent spirit of the people. As a 
pillar of fire, which notwithstanding the darkness of the pros- 
pect would conduct to the promised land, he inflamed and 
was followed by the Convention. . . . His eloquence un- 
locked the secret springs of the human heart, robbed danger of 
all its terror, and broke the keystone in the arch of royal 
power." 

Cooke, writing of the Convention, says : " It is cer- 
tain that he [Henry] swayed every assembly that he 
addressed, apparently at his pleasure. Whenever he 
was fully aroused, he overthrew all opposition, and 
forced his listeners as from a species of magnetism to 
accept his views as the only true ones. . . . His 
wonderful oratory made him a thousand times the 
superior " of the old nabobs. " By common consent 
of all his contemporaries, his eloquence was indescrib- 
able." It would be interesting to know just what hap- 
pened in Henry's mind when he leaped from cold to 
hot in this great address in the Independence Con- 
vention. Had he a struggle with himself? Did he 
wish to so manage the great colonial procedure as to 
win France and bind the confederacv tis^hter before 

259 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

declaring for American sovereignty? Did he suddenly 
sweep this from him in the heat generated by his own 
thoughts, and see that the thing to do was to go the 
full length then and there? Or was he acting? Did 
he purposely beat about the bush at the beginning in 
order that when he struck his game, his cry might 
startle, stir, and awaken responsive shouts? He was a 
great hunter. He was a great actor. But he was also 
an exceedingly considerate, modest, and deferential 
man among men. Therefore it is impossible to point 
precisely to his springs of action in this instance. We 
know that General Nelson, with the resolves in his 
pocket, made off for Philadelphia; that General Wash- 
ington, who happened to be there, was much gratified ; 
that Richard Henry Lee moved in Congress '' that these 
United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and 
independent States " ; that Thomas Jefferson wrote a 
Declaration in every way worthy of the theme, and that 
Congress put upon it the seal of its approval. It may 
be that for purposes of policy New England waited 
for Virginia to lead in the matter of independence, and 
it is a fact that North Carolina, whence arose the mooted 
Mecklenburg Declaration, was a month ahead of Vir- 
ginia in authorizing her delegates to " concur " with 
other delegates ; but Henry's State was the first to face 
and force the issue. 

Now at last the British flag was hauled down from 
above the Capitol in Williamsburg, and the Union flag 
took its place. The troops paraded before General 
Lewis, who was soon to crush Dunmore, and then soori 
to die of the same malarial fever we have mentioned. 
Artillery boomed ; toasts were drunk ; and at night the 
city was illuminated. 

Such was the first achievement of the great Conven- 
tion. Its out-turn thereafter was to be still more notable. 
Its committees met at seven in the morning ; the Conven- 

260 



AS A CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMAN 

tion itself at nine, adjourning at five in the afternoon. 
Much night-work was done. Grigsby credits Henry with 
important service in this particular. He says : " Nor 
was the influence of Henry, as has been too generally 
believed, confined to public debate. He was as effective 
in the committee-room as on the floor of the house. In 
both spheres his honesty and intrepidity were the sources 
of his success. Everybody saw that he was sincere, and 
that he did not belong to a class not uncommon in revo- 
lutions who are disposed to cling to the powers that 
be with one hand, and to the people with the other. 
There was something fascinating in the boldness with 
which he planted himself on the extreme frontier of 
public rights." In view of such testimony, is Gaillard 
Hunt justified in saying, as he does in his " Life of 
Madison " : " The Convention was a body with con- 
structive work before it, and Henry's genius lay not in 
that direction. The power he exerted in the proceedings 
of the Convention was not as great as that which 
had sw^ept along with him before or which he exercised 
afterwards upon successive Legislatures of the State " ? 
This seems to us to be in line with the Jeffersonian idea 
of Henry rather than a conclusion tallying with the 
truth. Many facts are to be considered. 

It was decided by the delegates that if the Convention 
had the power to declare independence — " the highest 
act of sovereignty " — it could also organize a permanent 
government. Hence some thirty committeemen, of 
whom Henry was one, set about the task of drafting a 
Bill of Rights and of framing a written Constitution. 
Thomas Ludwell Lee's idea that Congress should sug- 
gest a uniform model, to be adopted by all the States, 
found slight favor. There was a feeling abroad that 
Virginia herself could best originate a plan and pattern. 
The experiment was new in the world and of vast import 
to all mankind. Several of the delegates at Philadel- 

261 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

phia were deeply interested in the undertaking. Richard 
Henry Lee and George Wythe talked with John Adams 
about it; whereupon Adams wrote a pamphlet, 
'' Thoughts on Government," which was printed and 
sent to Henry. Lee also formulated a plan for Henry, 
who caused " A Government Scheme " to be printed in 
Purdie's Gazette at Williamsburg — whether his own 
or Lee's is uncertain, since no copy now exists. But 
another plan of government came down from Philadel- 
phia — the Carter Braxton plan. Meantime, Meriwether 
Smith offered a skeleton scheme; and finally, on the 
eve of adjournment, Wythe appeared, bearing upon his 
travel-stained person a " bill " from the pen of Thomas 
Jefferson. 

For af least five days following the adoption of the 
Independence resolves Henry probably had a heightened 
sense of his responsibility as a republican leader. He 
was the acknowledged antagonist of the aristocratic 
party, and it was his business to see that no aristocratic 
ideas should find place upon the protocol. That he had 
reason to be watchful is shown by a glance at the Carter 
Braxton project, which sketched out a little kingdom, 
to be a pattern for other little kingdoms on these Colum- 
bian shores. There was to be a Lower House, elected 
for three years ; an Upper House of twenty- four life 
Senators ; and a Governor elected for life. His Excel- 
lency was to be a creator of judges and other officials. 
In contrast with this was the Adams plan : a House 
elected by the people every year ; a Senate elected by 
the House for one year ; and a Governor elected annually, 
on joint ballot. The Senate was to have " a negative 
on the Lower House," and the Governor a veto on both. 
Judges were to be chosen by the Legislature. Let us 
see how Henry felt on Monday, the 20th of May, when 
he sent two letters North — one to Richard Henry Lee, 
the other to John Adams. In the Lee letter, he says : 

262 



AS A CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMAN 

" The grand work of forming a Constitution for Virginia 
is now before the Convention, where your love of equal liberty 
and your skill in public counsels might so eminently serve the 
cause of your country. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I fear 
too great a bias to Aristocracy prevails among the opulent. 
I own myself a Democrat on the plan of our admired friend, 
J. Adams, whose pamphlet I read with great pleasure. A per- 
formance from Philadelphia is just come here, ushered in, I'm 

told, by a colleague of yours, B , and greatly recommended 

by him. I don't like it. Is the author a Whig? — one or two 
expressions in the book make me ask. I wish to divide you 
and have you here, to animate by your manly eloquence the 
sometimes drooping spirits of our country, and in Congress, 
to be the ornament of your native country and the vigilant, 
determined foe of Tyranny. To give you colleagues of kindred 
sentiments is my wish. I doubt you have them not at present. 
. . . Vigor, animation, and all the powers of mind and body 
must now be summoned and collected together in one grand 
effort. Moderation, falsely so called, hath nearly brought on 
us final ruin. And to see those who have so fatally advised us 
still guiding, or at least sharing, our public counsels alarms 
me." 

In his letter to Adams, he speaks at once of the 
pamphlet : 

" I am exceedingly obliged to you for it ; and I am not with- 
out hopes it may produce good here, where there is among most 
of our opulent families a strong bias to Aristocracy. I tell 
my friends you are the author. Upon that supposition I have 
two reasons for liking the book. The sentiments are precisely 
the same I have long since taken up, and they come recom- 
mended by you. Go on, my dear friend, to assail the strong- 
holds of tyranny. . . . Our Convention is now employed in 
the great work of forming a Constitution. My most esteemed 
republican form has many and powerful enemies. A silly 
thing, published in Philadelphia, by ' A Native of Virginia,' 
has just made its appearance here, strongly recommended, 'tis 
said, by one of our delegates now with you — Braxton. His 
reasonings upon and distinction between private and public 
virtue are weak, shallow, and evasive, and the whole perform- 
ance an affront and disgrace to this country; and, by one 
expression, I suspect his Whiggism. 

" Our session will be very long, during which I cannot 

263 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

count upon one coadjutor of talents equal to the task. Would 
to God you and your Sam Adams were here ! " 

At this point several faithful biographers of several 
famous men throw up their hands in protestation. How 
cotild Henry write such a thing — the considerate and 
unvaunting Patrick? In truth, it was one of the rare 
indiscretions of Henry to thus lament the lack of coad- 
jutors ; but, as we have intimated, he was under a strain. 
Besides, he had no idea that young Madison would 
prove a star of the first magnitude ; nor did he suspect 
that there was something in the pocket of his friend 
George Mason infinitely more precious than all the 
golden guineas he had ever jingled there. 

Mark well that the letter was written on Monday, 
and mark well that Mason had not taken his seat in 
the Convention until the Saturday before. He had 
developed no plan publicly. Probably Henry had not 
talked with him ; possibly he had not even noted his 
presence in the hall; at any rate, it was still to be dis- 
closed that the " Planter Statesman " was the genius 
of the hour. 

He was a genius with the gout, and it was a fit of the 
gout that had kept him at home so long. A six-footer, 
sinewy, active, brown-skinned, his black eyes " burned 
with the brightness of youth." There was gray in his 
hair, which was as " black as that of Charles II., whom 
his ancestors had sustained on the bloody field of Wor- 
cester." But our scion of the cavaliers was a democrat 
after Henry's own heart — " a man of the first order of 
wisdom among those who acted on the theatre of the' 
Revolution, of expansive mind, profound judgment, 
cogent in argument, learned in the lore of former con- 
stitutions." The tribute is Jeflferson's, who tells us also 
that when he spoke, " his language was strong, his 
manner most impressive, and strengthened by a dash of 

264 



AS A CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMAN 

biting cynicism, when provocation made it seasonable." 
When he grew old, an opponent said of him that " Col- 
onel Mason's mind was failing him from age." " When 
his mind fails him," commented Mason, '' no one will 
ever discover it." 

'' We are now going upon the most important of all 
subjects — government!" wrote Mason, the day after 
his arrival at Williamsburg, addressing Richard Henr>' 
Lee. *' The committee appointed to prepare a plan is, 
according to custom, overcharged with useless members. 
You know our Convention. I need not say that it i"s 
not mended by the recent elections. We shall in all 
probability have a thousand ridiculous and impracti- 
cable proposals, and of course a plan formed of hetero- 
geneous, jarring, and unintelligible ingredients. This 
can be prevented only by a few men of integrity and 
ability, whose country's interest lies next their hearts, 
undertaking this business and defending it ably through 
every stage of opposition." 

There is no doubt whatever that the course thus out- 
lined was the one actually pursued. Mason and Henry 
stood together. The first debate was over the Declara- 
tion of Rights — " the basis and foundation " of the 
government. William Wirt Henry surmises that 
" Colonel Mason's draft was brought forward after 
others had been presented," and that " it embodied their 
best features." Miss Kate Mason Rowland, in her 
" Life of George Mason," says that Mason took with 
him from " Gunston Hall " to Williamsburg a draft of 
the bill subsequently proposed by him. An original 
of a tentative draft, mainly in the handwriting of Mason 
but partly in that of Thomas Ludwell Lee, is In the 
possession of the State of Virginia, together with a copy 
of the bill as adopted, this latter being wholly in Mason's 
hand and endorsed by him as follows : " This Declara- 
tion of Rights was the first in America ; it received few 

265 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

alterations or additions in the Virginia Convention 
(some of them not for the better), and was afterwards 
closely imitated by the other United States." In a letter 
to his cousin, Colonel George Mercer, Mason subse- 
quently wrote : " I enclose you a copy of the Declara- 
tion of Rights just as it was drawn and presented by 
me to the Virginia Convention, where it received few 
alterations, some of them I think not for the better." 
But the authorship of two of the sixteen articles in 
the Bill of Rights has been attributed to Henry. Hence 
a controversy has arisen. Miss Rowland avers that " a 
denial of them to Mason would invalidate equally his 
authorship of the remaining articles. And it is signifi- 
cant," she adds, " that the claim made in this connec- 
tion for Patrick Henry is based solely on a misleading 
reminiscence of the same historian [Edmund Randolph], 
who elsewhere declares that while ' many projects of a 
Bill of Rights and Constitution ' were brought forward, 
' that proposed by George Mason swallowed up all the 
rest, by fixing the grounds and plan ' of the two papers 
subsequently adopted." What Randolph wrote was : 
" That proposed by George Mason swallowed up all the 
rest, by fixing the grounds and plan which after great 
discussion and correction were finally ratified." There 
was great discussion and there was correction. Mason 
himself did not think much of the changes made in his 
bill ; but that they were made he testifies frankly. Why 
Miss Rowland should speak of a " misleading reminis- 
cence " is not clear. Randolph saw with his own eyes 
and heard with his own ears the whole proceeding, from 
the moment the business began until it ended, on the 
1 2th of June, when the bill was adopted. He noted the 
attack of the aristocrats on the declaration in the first 
article that " all men are by nature equally free and 
independent " ; and when we recall that he had almost 
broken his own heart in severing himself from his Tory 

266 



AS A CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMAN 

father, we can realize with what zest and fascination 
he must have watched the progress of the bill as it 
passed, section by section, through the ordeal to which 
it was subjected. He says : " The fifteenth, recom- 
mending an adherence and frequent recurrence to 
fundamental principles, and the sixteenth, unfettering 
the exercise of religion, were proposed by Mr. Henry. 
The latter, coming from a gentleman who was supposed 
to be a dissenter, caused an appeal to him, whether it 
was designed as a prelude to an attack on the estab- 
Jished church, and he disclaimed such an object." The 
article secured religious liberty to all people, " unless 
under the color of religion any man disturb the peace." 
Madison took out the word " toleration," and otherwise 
verbally improved the article, but the sense remained 
practically the same. To Henry, therefore, great credit 
goes. " To him," as William Wirt Henry declares, 
" we are indebted for the article in the Virginia Bill of 
Rights securing Religious Liberty, and for the first 
Amendment to the Federal Constitution embodying the 
same principle. . . . He seemed, as it were by intu- 
ition, to know when the popular mind was ready for 
every political movement, and he never made a mistake 
as to the proper time to take a step in advance. The 
adoption of this principle as the chief corner-stone of 
American government, and its subsequent progress in 
other portions of the w^orld, indicating that it is destined 
to become all-prevailing as Christian civilization ad- 
vances, with the inestimable blessings which flow from 
it, make Mr. Henry's act in causing its insertion in the 
Virginia Bill of Rights the most important of his life. 
If it had been the only act of his public life, it was 
sufficient to have enrolled his name among the greatest 
benefactors of the race." 

The same writer points out that in drafting the Con- 
stitution — " the first written Constitution of a free state 

267 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

in the annals of the world " — Mason was considerably 
influenced by the Adams plan as championed by Henry. 
The struggle over the ordinance of government lasted 
from the 12th to the 28th of June. Randolph says : 

"No member but Henry could, with impunity to his popu- 
larity, have contended as strenuously as he did for an executive 
veto on the acts of the two houses of legislation. Those who 
knew him to be indolent in literary investigations were aston- 
ished at the manner in which he exhausted the topic, unaided as 
he was believed to be by any treatises on government except 
Montesquieu. Among other arguments, he averred that a 
Governor would be a mere phantom, unable to defend his office 
from the usurpation of the Legislature, unless he could inter- 
pose a vehement impulse or ferment in that body, and that he 
would otherwise be ultimately a dependent, instead of a co- 
ordinate, branch of power." 

Again Randolph gives us a glimpse of Henry at work : 
" An article prohibiting bills of attainder was defeated 
by Henry, who, with a terrifying picture of some tower- 
ing public offender, against whom ordinary laws would 
be impotent, saved that dread power from being ex- 
pressly proscribed." 

And so the great work progressed to its completion. 
Was not Henry as apt, as ready, as zealous in con- 
structive effort as he had been in destroying the old 
order of evil ? Not that he is entitled to primacy in this 
matter — not by any means ; but he certainly bore a 
great part. Mason's fame is splendid enough without 
the added laurel of another. He does not need a 
monopoly of the glory attaching to an act that marked 
" a new era in the history of government." How much 
nobler it is to figure as the chief man among many men 
of merit than to seek to dwarf one's fellows — to be the 
be-all and the do-all ! But Mason himself had no such 
thought. " The texture of his mind was essentially 
republican," says Grigsby, To Mason, government 

268 



AS A CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMAN 

was " the most important of all subjects." It was an 
enthusiasm with him — this profound study of a science 
that had sweetness in it for man if it could be rid of 
kingcraft and the thousand bitternesses flowing there- 
from. Speaking of the Bill of Rights, Grigsby says: 
*' The critical eye can detect in its sixteen sections the 
history of England in miniature." And here, finally, is 
the eloquent tribute to Mason by William Cabell Rives : 

" When we look at the Declaration of Rights prepared by 
him, and which, with a few alterations, was adopted by the 
Convention, we shall find it a condensed, logical, and luminous 
summary of the great principles of freedom inherited by us 
from our British ancestors, the extracted essence of Magna 
Charta, the Petition of Rights, the acts of the Long Parlia- 
ment, and the doctrines of the Revolution of 1688 as expounded 
by Locke — distilled and concentrated through the alembic of 
his own powerful and discriminating mind. There is nothing 
more remarkable in the political annals of America than this 
paper." ^__ 



J 



26^ 



XIII 

AS AN EXECUTIVE FIVE TIMES GOVERNOR 

" The egotism of human nature will seldom allow us 
to credit a man for one excellence without detracting 
from him in other respects ; if he has genius, we imagine 
he has not common sense; if he is a poet, we suppose 
that he is not a logician." So says Brougham ; and in 
this connection we are reminded of the gratuitous as- 
sumption on the part of sundry writers that Henry must 
have lacked executive as well as military capacity. 
He had not been permitted to show what stuff he was 
made of when it came to the business of outwitting 
or outfighting the enemy, but in the turn of events 
he was now given an opportunity to prove his fitness 
for administering the affairs of the new Commonwealth. 

When his friends brought him forward as a candidate 
for Governor, Henry took the ground that " the ofiice 
was neither to be sought nor refused." He saw clearly 
that the new government would be exposed to *' number- 
less hazards and perils," and that if it should succeed, it 
" must be guarded by an affectionate assiduity and 
managed by great abilities." These are his own words. 
The Pendleton men pushed the candidacy of Thomas 
Nelson, and pushed it hard ; but, says Randolph, '' from 
every period of Henry's life something of a democratic 
and patriotic cast was collected, so as to accumulate 
a rate of merit too strong for this last expiring act of 
aristocracy." The vote stood : Henry, 60 : Nelson, 45 ; 
Page, I. Long afterwards, in Judge Spencer Roane's 
presence, Pendleton *' justified himself for not offering 
for the office of Governor in 1776, on the ground that 
he did not think it became those who pushed the 

270 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

Revolution to get into the first offices, and that on that 
ground he voted for Secretary Nelson. On which," 
adds Roane, " feeling that the remark was aimed at 
Mr. Henry, I replied that we should have cut a pretty 
figure if that office had been given to a man who was 
no Whig; as Mr. Nelson was said to have been." 
There is spice here — a sarcasm at Henry's expense. 
American politics was cradled in dispute. 

Thus it was that Henry began a long State service, 
declining in the course of it to go back to the Continental 
Congress. His executive problems were numerous and 
varied. Democratic precedents were to be set. Tact 
would be called for in dealing with the sister States. 
Henry, who knew that he had enough to do, proceeded 
to do it so well that he was reappointed on May 30, 
1777, and reelected in the spring of 1778, retiring on 
the first of May, 1779, because no Governor could suc- 
ceed himself for a fourth consecutive term. But having 
led the Assembly in the interval, he was chosen Gov- 
ernor once more on November 17, 1784, and reelected 
in 1785. Indeed, he was made Governor in 1786, and 
even as late as 1796, but declined to serve. Let us 
remember that during the ten years when he was either 
the executive head or the legislative leader, self-govern- 
ing democracy was new to itself in Virginia, and that 
some of the horses were hard to hold. 

Democracy was so new to itself that it looked with 
interest upon the scarlet cloak Governor Henry wore 
when, having taken the oath of office on the 5th of July, 
1776, he moved into the " palace " at Williamsburg. 
But his scarlet cloak, black small-clothes, and dressed 
wig had a meaning. The wearer, says Judge Roane,, 
*' had been accused by the big-wigs of former times as 
being a coarse and common man, and utterly destitute 
of dignity, and perhaps he wished to show them that 
they were mistaken." He must have been pleased with 

271 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

some of the congratulatory addresses and letters received 
by him, especially one from the growing community 
of Baptists, and another signed by all the officers of the 
First and Second regiments, save Colonel Woodford. 
No doubt he was amused by a letter dated Charleston, 
S. C, which began : " I used to regret not being thrown 
into the world in the glorious third or fourth century 
of the Romans, but I am now thoroughly reconciled 
to my lot." It was from General Charles Lee, whose 
crowning woe was to come on Monmouth battlefield, 
but who affected to be troubled now because people 
used such terms as " his Excellency " or " his Honor " 
when they addressed a simple citizen in a scarlet cloak, 
with a " palace " for his dwelling-place. " Yes," wrote 
Lee, " there is a barbarism crept in among us that ex- 
tremely sliocks me. I mean those tinsel epithets with 
which (I come in for my share) we are so beplastered — 
* his excellency,' and ' his honor,' ' the honorable presi- 
dent of the honorable Congress ' or ' the honorable Con- 
vention.' . . . For my part, I would as lief they 
would put ratsbane in my mouth as the ' excellency ' 
with which I am daily consumed." 

The " palace " where Henry dwelt was " lavishly 
ornamented within and without," and had extensive 
grounds, gardens, and outhouses — among them two 
offices. The reception-room, " running half the front 
and the entire depth of the building," was less needed 
by the democratic Henry than it had been by the lordly 
Botetourt, or by John Murray, Earl of Dunmore. Pro- 
fessor Tyler scents poetic retribution In the picturesque 
fact that the man who led the gunpowder party now had 
it in his power to write proclamations against Dunmore 
at the same desk from which Dunmore had fulminated 
against " a certain Patrick Henry, of Hanover County." 
But Dunmore's day was done. This very month he 
would be slipping out between the Capes, never to return. 

272 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

On the 8th of July, General Andrew Lewis, who had 
crushed Cornstalk on the border, put his heel on the 
remnant of Dunmore's band at Gwinn's Island, by 
Chesapeake side; and for three years Virginia was free 
from all save petty invaders who played the pirate along 
the river shores. 

Henry, with his Privy Council, of which John Page 
was President, went to work with a will. In attestation 
of this, and of the manifold duties performed, are the 
official records still to be seen in the State Library. 
One has but to turn the pages of the foHos there to 
satisfy himself that if Henry did not roll up his sleeves, 
he at least deserved the pay he got — a thousand pounds 
a year. His letter books for 76, 'yj, and '78 are not 
to be found, but the Executive Journal, missing for 1779, 
is nearly complete for the first three years of his guber- 
natorial service. We cannot undertake to squeeze 
out of these dry details the sweat that Henry and his 
councillors put into them, nor should we have dwelt 
upon them at all save for the purpose of proving that 
he could pin himself down to irksome labor. Note that 
the State had in it 400,000 people — half of them white ; 
that the ship had to be driven along with every sail 
brand-new, and that the old beacons and buoys had been 
obliterated by the storm of war. As an instance of 
the onerous nature of the work: Many claims were 
entered against the State, and it v/as incumbent upon 
Henry and his helpers not only to pass upon the war- 
rants, but, for lack of an auditor, to keep record of them. 
There was a salt famine, and there was a scarcity of 
medicine ; so a fleet of sloops had to be sent off to the 
West Indies to obtain supplies of these necessaries. 
There was much other public business to be done ; and 
we may be sure that Henry also felt it to be a part of 
his duty to watch the progress of political events. It 
has been mentioned that his health broke in the summer 
18 273 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

of 1776. He was at Williamsburg when the first repub- 
lican Legislature met there on the 7th of October, but on 
the 30th " the Speaker laid before the House a letter 
from the Governor, informing him that the low state of 
his health rendered him unable to attend to the duties 
of his office, and that his physicians had recommended 
him to retire therefrom into the country till he should 
recover his strength." He was away three weeks ; and 
meantime something important happened. 

Jefferson suddenly appeared in the Assembly and 
became its dominating figure. Having '' poured the soul 
of the Continent into the monumental act of Independ- 
ence " (as Ezra Stiles expressed it), the rising statesman 
— able, amazingly energetic, fired afresh with high am- 
bition — turned his back upon Congress, and began to 
busy himself with vital problems in Virginia. He wished 
to rid the statute-books of outworn lav/s, and bring the 
code into harmony with the new spirit and the new con- 
ditions. He struck hard at primogeniture. There were 
fierce contests in the Old Capitol, and they ended favor- 
ably for Jefferson. By the abolition of the law of entails, 
aristocracy was given its finishing stroke. By the ex- 
emption of dissenters from the payment of taxes for 
the support of the Established Church, a forward step 
was taken towards the law enacted nine years later, 
establishing religious freedom. 

Grigsby thinks that no man living save Jefferson 
'* would have dared to grapple, at one and the same time, 
with the laws of primogeniture, of entails, and of an 
established church, and to seek their instant and uncon- 
ditional overthrow. Boldness in this instance was the 
height of wisdom. Had he postponed his assaults until 
the filaments of prejudice which had been broken by 
the Declaration of Independence had begun to reunite, 
nothing short of a new revolution would have rent them 
asunder." 

274 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

Beyond doubt Jefferson's work in November, 1776, 
was a master-stroke. He loomed all the larger because 
Henry was absent; and he led in the Assembly with 
immunity from challenge because Mason had not as yet 
come down from Fairfax. Our lordly democrat of 
" Gunston Hall " was not averse to visits from sergeants- 
at-arms. On this occasion, as on others, he had to be sent 
for, and was lugged before the dais that he might excul- 
pate himself, school-boy fashion — perhaps laying his 
truancy to a siege of the gout. But as Jefferson had 
been beforehand in clearing the way for reform, he 
was doubtless glad to see so fine an ally. Like Pendle- 
ton, Wythe, and Thomas Ludwell Lee, Mason joined 
hands wdth Jefferson, and each bore an important part 
in recasting the laws of the Commonwealth. Nor 
would it be just to the adherents of the Established 
Church if we should fail to pause here for a moment 
to remark upon a certain nobility of theirs when Jeffer- 
son grappled with them to lay them low. They were 
patriots. They were apprehensive lest a local religious 
struggle within the grander secular struggle should 
hurt the cause of America. " They therefore did in 
truth cast the Establishment at the feet of its enemies." 

In these things just outlined we have been teUing of 
Jefferson the Great ; now immediately, as it happens, 
we come to speak of Jefferson the Little. In his 
'* Notes on Virginia," written five years later, Jefferson 
said : 

" In December, 1776, our circumstances being much distressed, 
it was proposed, in the House of Delegates, to create a Dictator, 
invested with every power, legislative, executive, and judiciary, 
civil and military, of life and death over our persons and over 
our properties. . . . One who entered into this contest 
from a pure love of liberty, and a sense of injured rights, who 
determined to make every sacrifice and meet every danger, 
for the re-establishment of those rights on a firm basis . . . 
must stand confounded and dismayed when he is told that a 

275 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

considerable portion of ' the House ' had meditated a surrender 
of them into a single hand, and, in lieu of a limited monarchy, 
to deliver him over a despotic one. . . . The very thought 
alone was treason against the people. . . . The advocates 
of this measure . . . had been seduced in their judgment 
by the example of an ancient republic, whose constitution and 
circumstances were fundamentally different." 

Jefferson does not say that this proposed Dictator 
was to be Patrick Henry ; but he insinuates as much, 
and his pupil in history, Girardin, developed the insinua- 
tion into an actual charge. " That Mr. Henry was the 
person in view for the dictatorship," wrote Girardin, in 
1816, " is well ascertained." He adds : " It appears 
from concurring reports that this dictatorial scheme pro- 
duced in the Legislature unusual heat and violence. 
The members who favored and those who opposed it 
walked the streets on different sides." 

Jefferson likewise inspired Wirt's story as to " the 
mad project of a dictator." Wirt says : 

" That Mr. Henry was thought of for this office has been 
alleged, and is highly probable; but that the project was sug- 
gested by him, or even received his countenance, I have met 
with no one who will venture to affirm. There is a tradition 
that Colonel Archibald Cary, the Speaker of the Senate, was 
principally instrumental in crushing this project; that meet- 
ing Colonel Syme, the step-brother [half-brother] of Colonel 
Henry, in the lobby of the House, he accosted him very 
fiercely in terms like these : ' I am told that your brother wishes 
to be Dictator. Tell him from me that the day of his appoint- 
ment shall be the day of his death — for he shall feel my 
dagger in his heart before the sunset of that day:' and the 
tradition adds that Colonel Syme, in great agitation, declared 
'that if such a project existed, his brother had no hand in it, 
for that nothing could be more foreign to him than to counte- 
nance any office which would endanger, in the most distant man- 
ner, the liberties of his country.' The intrepidity and violence 
of Colonel Cary's character renders the tradition probable ; 
but it furnishes no proof of Mr. Henry's implication in the 
scheme." 

276 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

If the Senator from Chesterfield really browbeat the 
Delegate from Hanover in the tragic fashion here set 
forth, then we have in Cary of Ampthill one of the early 
'' fire-eaters." Evidence of his combativeness — and of 
his ardent patriotism, too — may be found in many 
quarters. Mason, for instance, alludes to a speech by 
Cary, and rejoices that " to-morrow the old bruiser * will 
have his mouth shut in the chair." In fact, we are led 
to believe that if the terrible Patrick, Dictator of Vir- 
ginia, in marching at the head of his twenty-four lictors 
from the " palace " to the Capitol, had met Colonel Cary 
opposite the Raleigh Tavern, he would have caused the 
axe to be drawn from the fasces and applied at once. 
" Off with his head ! So much for Archibald ! " would 
have given a fine finish to the theatrical tale as told in 
tradition. " Apocryphal but thrilling," is Grigsby's ver- 
dict upon the alleged happening; and he proceeds to 
note that Cary himself, by permitting less than a quorum 
to act in a certain war emergency, tolerated not one dic- 
tator only, but many. Moreover, it is a fact that General 
Washington was given extraordinary powers ; so was 
Governor John Rutledge, in South Carolina ; so was 
Jefferson himself when, having succeeded Henry, emer- 
gent perils arose, necessitating speedy and desperate 
endeavor. 

Not alone Grigsby, but Campbell and all other dis- 
criminating students of the times tread gingerly when 
they reach this shaky ground. " Who they were that 
favored a dictatorship," says Campbell, " or where it 
was concocted, or how developed, does not appear. 
There is no evidence," he adds, that Henry " suggested 

* Cary was known as " Old Iron," because he owned iron 
works. The word " bruiser " is not usually applied to a small 
man ; and perhaps it was this epithet that caused Grigsby to 
revise his own prior assertion that Cary was lower in stature 
than his big-bodied contemporaries. 

277 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

the plan, or favored it, or consented to it, or was in any 
way privy to it." William Wirt Henry passes over the 
subject with his accustomed dignity and common-sense. 
Moses Coit Tyler magnifies it into a matter of conse- 
quence as afifecting Henry's character. Many things 
come to mind when Patrick Henry is mentioned, and 
none more quickly than the thought of him as the 
champion of liberty. Hence the hurtfulness of the insin- 
uation that he was on the point of making a volte-face 
— a monstrous reversal of himself. Tyler dwells too 
feelingly upon the incident, but it is because he detects 
an artful twist in its Monticello interpretation. 

To be fair about it, we may as well assume that 
there was some idle talk of a dictatorship diu'ing the 
Christmas crisis of 1776, just as there was in the Tarle- 
ton crisis of 1781. Let us remember that Rome was 
very real to the educated Virginian of the time. Old 
Rome, old England — these were the lands he knew, or 
thought that he knew, and around wdiich his imagination 
hovered. He admired the Roman republic. He w^as 
disposed to liken himself to a Roman citizen — as Col- 
onel Cary may have likened himself to Brutus. He 
eased his conscience on the subject of slavery by recall- 
ing the fact that his pagan prototype also held slaves. 
Thus it was in accord with his classic training for the 
Virginian to talk of the '' magister popiili " — the mag- 
istrate extraordinary who, for six months and no more, 
might go forth armed with terrible powers to save 
the land from overwhelming disaster. Such, in the 
purity of the Roman republic, was the function of- a 
dictator ; and this doubtless was the sort of official 
desired by the advocates of the project which Jefferson 
seizes upon as in sharp contrast with contemporary 
evidences of his own democracy. But Jefferson would 
have us think of the corrupt days of the Roman republic 
^nd of the usurpers wdio became bloody tyrants. Again, 

278 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

as we ponder over the matter, we seem to see the 
bloody Patrick, in his toga prcetexta, raging up and 
down Duke of Gloucester Street, and perhaps winking 
at his twenty-four lictors as he asks whether his dear 
friend Thomas Jefferson has come to town from '' Shad- 
well." 

Jefferson was not at Williamsburg during the panic 
period. He had thrown himself into the work of re- 
vising the laws, and personally knew nothing of the 
events of the week preceding Christmas. What happened 
may be briefly set forth and easily understood. For 
three months all news from the North had been bad. 
A tremendous cloud hung there. Washington had 
been forced to let go his hold on the Hudson, and had 
crossed the Jersies. But the disheartening reports gave 
rise to no excitement until the 20th of December. 
Then, just as the Assembly was on the point of ad- 
journing, to meet again in March, Purdie's Gazette 
came out with panic news from Philadelphia. The 
King's army was in the valley of the Delaware, moving 
South. Congress had fled. *' These are the times that 
try men's souls," wrote Paine, in his " Crisis." To 
meet the emergency, the Assembly resolved, on the 21st, 
** that the usual forms of government should be sus- 
pended during a limited time." The Senate, where 
Colonel Cary sat, so changed the phrase as to make 
it read " that additional powers be given to the Gov- 
ernor and Council for a limited time." Then the Leg- 
islature adjourned, and Henry issued a proclamation 
calling for volunteers. Simple in themselves, these 
are the facts upon which the dictator story was based. 
At the next session of the Legislature, when Henry 
came up for reelection, hardly a whisper of opposition 
to him was heard. He was reappointed without bal- 
lot. '' The good of the Commonwealth," said he to 
the House, '' shall be the only object of my pursuit, 

279 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

and I shall measure my happiness according to the 
success which shall attend my endeavors to establish 
the public liberty." 

In saying that there was " hardly a whisper of 
opposition," it is not meant that Henry escaped criti- 
cism. Landon Carter — old, aristocratic, and unsweet- 
ened of charity — wrote to General Washington : 

"If I do not err in conjecture, I can't help thinking that the 
head of our Commonwealth has as great a palace of fear and 
apprehension as can bless the heart of any human being ; and 
if we compare rumor with act^ movements, I believe it 
will prove itself to every sensible man. As soon as the 
Congress sent for our First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth 
regiments to assist you in contest against the enemy where 
they really were . . . there got a report among the soldiery 
that Dignity would not reside in Williamsburg without two 
thousand men under arms to guard him. This had like to 
have occasioned a mutiny. A desertion of many from the 
several companies did follow ; boisterous fellows resisting, and 
swearing they would not leave their county. . . . What a 
finesse of popularity was this? ... As soon as the regi- 
ments were gone, this great man found an interest with the 
Council of State, perhaps as timorous as himself, to issue 
orders for the militia of twenty-six counties, and five companies 
of a Minute battalion, to march to Williamsburg, to protect 
him only against his own fears ; and to make this the more 
popular, it was endeavored that the House of Delegates should 
give it a countenance, but, as good luck would have it, it was 
' with difficulty refused. . . . Immediately then ... a 
brought in to remove the seat of government — some say 
Hanover, to be called Henry-Town." 

Dr. Tyler aptly remarks that the criticism of the 
carping and rancorous Colonel Carter * qualifies some- 

* This quaint bit from Landon Carter's diary elucidates his 
own character as well as that of Ralph Wormley, or Worme- 
ley : " Wormeley, as usual boisterous and contradictory, close- 
wedded to some side in every argument, so that to convince 
is impossible. I don't know what to make of the man ; he is 

280 




AS AN EXECUTIVE 

what " that stream of honeyed testimony respecting 
Patrick Henry which commonly flows down upon us 
so copiously from all that period." 

With respect to the Hanover Town mentioned in the 
letter, he who now visits it finds but an open fieM 
on the banks of the Pamunkey. Anciently it was Page's 
Warehouse, and in colonial times it was not uncommon 
to see, in the main road leading down, a mile-long 
procession of hogsheads, each turning upon a central 
bar, and rolling readily to the tug of ox, horse, or mule. 
At the wharves were many sloops and schooners. This 
was the place that came within one vote of securing the 
Capitol when it was decided to transfer the public 
offices inland from Williamsburg. Hanover Town lost 
in the contest, and vanished; Richmond won, and soon 
grew to be a beautiful city. 

That the '* honeyed testimony " respecting Henry 
may not cloy upon us, another letter severely criticising 
his administration is now offered. It was written by 
St. George Tucker — the same who furnished the court- 
room description already cited — and was addressed to 
Colonel Theoderick Bland, Jr. Henry had just quit the 
Governor's chair, and Jefferson was in his place. 
Tucker said : 

'' I wish his Excellency's activity may be equal to the 
abilities he possesses in so eminent a degree. In that case we 
may boast of having the greatest man on the continent at the 
helm. But if he should tread in the steps of his predecessor, 
there is not much to be expected from the brightest talents. 
Did the enemy know how very defenceless we are at present, 
a very small addition to their late force would be sufficient 
to commit the greatest ravages throughout the country. It 

very sensible, but in that most intolerable. He gave me several 
chops; at last I advised him to read Delianeus' botany, and he 
could find that Princess feathers and coxcombs were so nearly 
allied that both came from the amaranthus. He took me; 
and, as it cut deep, he endeavored to put it off with a laugh." 

281 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

is a melancholy fact that there were not arms enough to 
put into the hands of the few militia who were called down 
on the late occasion ; of those which were to be had a great 
number were not fit for use. Nor was there by any means a 
sufficiency of ammunition or camp utensils of any kind. In 
short, never was a country in a more shabby situation; for our 
fortifications and marine, on which more than a million have 
been thrown away, are in no capacity to render any service 
to us; nor have we any standing force to give the smallest 
check to an approaching enemy. In two days after the depart- 
ure of the fleet, they might have returned and found nobody 
to oppose them. Such wisdom, energy, and foresight do our 
leaders display." 

This, of course, is a real criticism in comparison 
with Landon Carter's pettish flings. It is an arraign- 
ment, and would put every Henryite on his mettle were 
it not well understood that Tucker had taken umbrage 
at Henry's treatment of him the year before. When a 
man is in a miff, he is apt to darken his thoughts of 
the wretch who crossed him ; and for months the sensi- 
tive Tucker was sorely piqued because on a certain 
occasion the Governor had given him censure instead 
of praise. While in Charleston, S. C, as an agent for 
Virginia, Tucker took £500 out of his own pocket that 
he might buy and ship indigo to be exchanged for 
arms. At Williamsburg he called upon the Governor's 
Council to ask for reimbursement. He says: 

" I believe I attended twice before I had the honor of ad- 
mittance to the Council board, when Governor Henry received 
me like a great man. I was not asked to sit down, I was not 
thanked for my zeal and expedition, or for advancing my 
money. Mr. Henry made some remarks upon the high price 
I had given for the indigo — said it was more than the State 
had bought it for before (which was very true, for depreciation 
had then begun), and that I appeared to have been too much in 
a hurry to make the purchase. I felt indignation flash from 
my eyes, and I feel it at my heart at this moment. I am there- 
fore an unfit person to draw an exact portrait of Mr. Henry, 
or to give a fair estimate of his character." 

282 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

Here we have a clear, sharp view of Henry as 
executive officer of the Commonwealth. The room is 
well lighted for us. The whole scene stands out. It 
is not the orator who turns in his chair and looks 
towards us ; it is the business man. We remember that 
he has been spoken of as one who shuns business — 
who is impatient of details. Therefore we are aston- 
ished at the sharpness of his questions, and at the 
pains he takes to see that the public has not been 
victimized, even in so small a transaction as the one 
he is considering. Evidently he has informed himself 
as to the price of indigo ; and we suspect that he knows 
a great deal about all such practical things. He is soon 
to take an important stand against engrossing, so he 
must have an intimate knowledge of true prices and 
false ones; and indeed, being a faithful servant of the 
State, he must look sharply in her behalf — even as 
he is doing at this moment. So we say to ourselves, 
as we watch the scene between the war Governor and 
the high-spirited youth who stands before him — flushed, 
inwardly a-quiver, angry with an anger that will take 
long to cool. Our sympathies cannot but be with the 
younger man ; though we must admit that if we were 
aware of all the harassments to which the other had 
been subjected of late, we probably should excuse him 
for his lack of suavity on this occasion. It is clear that 
v/hen Henry was bent upon the execution of public 
duties, he hardened much in manner. We recall that 
he mistrusted Carter Braxton and did not cloak his 
mistrust. W^e see that he was displeased with young 
Tucker and did not conceal his displeasure. But it 
was Henry the official who so appeared. Socially he 
was a different man. Having met him in company 
a long while afterwards, Tucker said of him : " His 
manners were the perfection of urbanity; his conver- 
sation various, entertaining, instructive, and fascinat- 

283 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

ing. I parted from him with infinite regret, and forgot 
for the whole time I was with him that I had so many 
years borne in mind an expression which might not 
have been intended to wound me as it did." 

Obviously, then, there is little to Tucker's strictures. 
But heedless of the admitted animus back of them, 
or perhaps ignorant with respect to it, some of the 
writers of to-day blame Henry and the Revolutionary 
Legislature for permitting Virginia to remain unde- 
fended against such incursions as that of Matthews. 
But it will not do to lose sight of the fact that Vir- 
ginia was open to the ocean. Her bay, and the numer- 
ous arms of that bay, exposed her to the attacks of 
an enemy especially powerful on the water. It was 
impossible for Henry to stretch chevaux-de-frise from 
cape to cape. He could only fortify such points as York- 
town, and provide a fleet of war-vessels to keep the 
Chesapeake whipped clean of Tory marauders and 
escort the State's trading craft out and in on their West 
Indian voyages. He controlled a navy board which built 
and equipped seventeen ships, fifteen brigs, nineteen 
schooners, fifteen galleys, two pilot-boats, and two 
barges. He established dockyards and naval depots, im- 
ported gunpowder, manufactured gunpowder, and mined 
lead. Much recruiting for other States was done in Vir- 
ginia, and Henry helped it along whenever he could. 
He kept up Virginia's Continental quota of some six 
thousand men, and was frequently occupied in looking 
after the four or five thousand militia. He supplied 
the Virginia soldiers in Washington's army with cloth- 
ing and foot-leather, and was tireless in his efforts to 
keep that army from starving. His zeal and vigor in 
this business entitle him to the highest honor as a 
guardian of America in her time of trial. It is a great 
glory of Henry's that he sent all the cattle he could 
gather to feed the poor fellows at Valley Forge. No one 

284 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

took the troubles of the " ragged Continentals " more 
to heart than did the Governor of Virginia. 

It may, or may not, be that Henry saw behind the 
enemy's grand plan of campaign, which was to cut 
the colonies apart on the line of the Hudson. Here 
was the weakest link in the chain, geographically and 
politically. That was why Burgoyne tried to reach 
down from Canada to join hands with Howe, who, 
by an egregious blunder, withdrew during the crucial 
period to another field. But even if Henry did not 
understand the grand strategy of the war, he had some 
warrant in assuming that the real fighting was likely 
to continue in the North. What, indeed, would it 
profit the British if they should land a great army 
in Virginia and overrun the State? The people them- 
selves were hardly conquerable. They would move 
to the mountains, and, when the enemy had departed, 
would return to their devastated homes. But that 
would not help the King. So thinking, and being ready 
to risk much since much was to be gained, Henry 
stripped Virginia of arms and provisions and sent them 
to Washington's camp. Students who examine the 
Calendar of State Papers become convinced that the 
resources of the Commonwealth were practically ex- 
hausted in behalf of the Union. This is one reason 
why the militia were poorly equipped, and why they 
were ineffective when Tarleton went careering through 
the State. There was no lack of men, but they were 
scattered over counties forty miles square ; and they 
had few arms. Unquestionably Henry made mistakes, 
but in the main his course was admirable. 

Henry was not only painstaking in the performance 
of his set duties, but was watchful of the larger matters. 
He secured foreign loans ; he looked sagaciously be- 
yond the Alleghanies, and he handled his pen with 
vigor and effectiveness. Of his twenty-one existing 

285 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

letters to Washington and of Washington's thirty-four 
letters to him, the greater number deal with the affairs 
of this period. So with the letters to and from Richard 
Henry Lee. We note eighteen letters from Henry to 
Lee, and thirty-six from Lee to Henry. Eight of the 
latter were found by accident among some of Mayo 
Cabell's papers at Union Hill, where Henry, who took 
slight trouble to preserve his Revolutionary correspond- 
ence, is supposed to have left them. There was also a 
Washington letter in the lot. No one knows, of course, 
how many precious documents bearing the signature of 
Washington, Lee, or Henry were used to light the 
fires, or " stop a hole to keep the wind away." It is 
a fact that a good Virginia housekeeper kept the mould 
out of her preserves with covers cut from George 
Mason's letters. At a time when and a place where 
paper was scarce, we can imagine how great a tempta- 
tion it was to ransack the garret for needed scraps. 
Perhaps the searcher hesitated the less if perchance her 
eye fell upon some such postscript as that in a letter 
written by Robert Munford, who was a constant guest 
at Colonel Washington's table during the campaign of 
1758. Munford's message was to his aunt, and was 
couched in ten words : " I am well and lousie, and still 
your affectionate nephew." But, as Fisher Ames said, 
" it is natural that the gratitude of mankind should be 
drawn to their benefactors " ; therefore we are sorry that 
preserves were so much liked in old Virginia, and we 
are glad to have certain letters that corroding time has 
left us. Those that passed between Henry and Lee tell 
of their hopes, their fears, and their efforts to strengthen 
the credit of the country and keep the army up to the 
mark. They impart confidences. The writers mutually 
encourage each other. One suggests in Philadelphia 
something that the other may act on in Virginia ; and so 
it goes, turn and turn about. Lee was indefatigable. 

286 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

He must have been a great man — a great patriot. 
Hampden, Sidney, and Pelham had been his heroes 
and models when he was a youth. He was so diffident 
that he never thought of himself as an orator until one 
day, in the House, his brother, Thomas Ludwell, also 
a member, was subjected to an indignity. Then, get- 
ting upon his feet, Richard Henry discovered and dis- 
closed himself as one of the most eloquent of men. Just 
before the war, he was shooting swans on the Potomac 
when his gun burst ; and, after that, he wore a silk 
wrapping on one hand to hide the loss of its fingers. 
Ever since Stamp Act times Henry and Lee had worked 
together. Speaking of their warm friendship, Lee's 
grandson and biographer says : 

" This was the certain consequence of the intercourse of men 
of such congenial feeling and similar principles. This friend- 
ship and harmony of principle existed till their death. Two 
such men, during the period which followed, acting in close 
and active concert, must have had a powerful influence on the 
public opinions and proceedings of their native State. And, 
indeed, to the genius, integrity, and eloquence of these great 
men may be attributed, in a very considerable degree, the 
confessedly distinguished part which Virginia acted in the 
Revolution. They aroused their fellow-citizens to a sense of 
their danger; they cheered and animated them in the dark 
hours of war and desolation ; suggested the most efficient means 
of resistance ; and directed the patriotism, they so generally 
found, to the wisest ends. . . . Mr. Henry observed to a 
son of Richard Henry Lee, who had the pleasure of serving 
a session some years afterwards with him : ' Your father, sir, 
and myself always agreed upon the great principles of free- 
dom. We differed on some questions of internal policy, but 
liberty alike we fondly loved.' " 

"Plain, solid common sense," Campbell assures us, 
" was the distinguishing characteristic of his [R. H. 
Lee's] mind as it was of Mr. Henry's." 

Much mystery has been made of '' the Lee scandal," 

287 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

so called. In truth, there was no actual basis for scandal. 
In 1776, foreseeing the depreciation of Continental cur- 
rency, he stipulated that his tenants should pay him 
in tobacco instead of paper money ; or, if not in tobacco, 
in gold or silver. For this he was deprived of his seat 
in Congress ; but after an excusatory address in the 
Assembly — a speech that brought tears, 'tis said — he 
was reelected, greatly to Patrick Henry's relief and joy. 
Lee, Henry, Washington, and Mason all looked after 
their own during the Revolution. We expect a great 
deal of our heroes, but it is hardly fair to insist that 
they shall throw their families out at the window. The 
pay for public service was small ; and it was a point of 
honor in America in those days to accept no gift that 
smacked of bribery. " A neighbor of his," writes Henry 
Clay of his preceptor, the great George Wythe, " Mr. H., 
who had the reputation of being a West Indian nabob, 
and who at the time had an important suit pending in 
the Court of Chancery, sent him a demijohn of old 
arrack, and an orange-tree for his niece, Miss Nelson, 
then residing with him. Wythe sent them back, saying 
that he had long since ceased to make use of arrack, 
and that Miss Nelson had no conservatory." 

Richard Henry Lee certainly was needed in Philadel- 
phia in 1777, and from that time on till the war ended. 
The character of Congress was changing. Some of the 
strong men were out, and their places had been taken 
by weaklings. On one occasion, Henry Laurens, then 
president, " so far forgot himself as to answer from the 
chair an honorable member from North Carolina [Mr. 
Penn] by singing aloud : ' Poor little Penny, poor little 
Penny ; sing tan-tarra-ra-ra.' " But for the decadence 
of Congress, it is unlikely that the Conway Cabal would 
have come to a head. Conway, a Count, was of Irish 
blood, but French by birth and training. It is apolo- 
getically that we make use of the word " Irish " here, 

288 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

for the men of that stock bore a great part in the Rev- 
olution. The splendid French regiments at Yorktown 
were officered by Irishmen educated in France. The 
Continental Army was largely recruited among the 
Irish, especially the Pennsylvania part of it. Harsh 
laws had driven many Irish Catholics out of Maryland, 
and they formed the bulk of the Pennsylvania line. It 
is said that upon Wayne's call for volunteers, at the 
storming of Stony Point, there was no response at first. 
But by and by, in the darkness there, a voice was heard : 
" Gin'ral ! Give us a gill apiece, and we'll shiver it out 
with you." Whereupon the " gill apiece " was supplied, 
and they all shivered it out, incidentally shivering the 
rock-bound fortress of kingly power in that part of the 
continent. 

Conway and Charles Lee were cosmopolites — ^bold 
adventurers. They had acquired the art of double-deal- 
ing in the European school of sliding panels and courtly 
hocus-pocus. Lee, especially, knew his "Tartufe." His 
mask was eccentricity. How he hoodwinked Washing- 
ton is hard to understand, unless we assume that, being 
personally unfamiliar with the refinements of civilized 
guile, Washington was too generous, too unwilling to 
suspect, too high-minded. Had Lee worn a red skin, 
Washington would have read him through and through 
very quickly. As it was, he bore with him on the theory 
that treachery and an illuminated mind, such as Lee 
seemed to have, do not go together. Lee was second 
in command, and wished to be first — either for the glory 
of it, or that he might sell America to the King. When 
Washington was west of the Hudson, he begged Lee, 
who was east of it, to cross the river and reunite the 
two wings of the army. Lee disobeyed ; hence Washing- 
ton was forced to retreat to the Delaware at the risk of 
his troops and his reputation. Lee's subsequent " cap- 
ture " was a suspicious proceeding ; and, while he was a 
19 289 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

prisoner, he devised the Philadelphia campaign for the 
Howes — an act of treachery long unknown to the world, 
but now beyond dispute. Not until the battle of Mon- 
mouth did Washington smite Lee and strip him. 

Conway's machinations were unlike Lee's, who worked 
alone. Conway involved many men of influence in his 
intrigue. Gates, Reed, Mifflin, and Rush are thought 
to have been active in the Cabal, which was coincident 
with Lee's scheming, but probably unconnected with it. 
Conway used Gates against Washington, who had just 
lost two battles, and lost the capital, too ; whereas Gates 
had just won a victory so great that the whole world 
heard of it, and understood its significance. We now see 
that if Washington had not held him on the Delaware, 
Howe would have returned to New York, marched up 
the Hudson, and cooperated with Burgoyne, and to- 
gether they probably would have cut the country in half. 
It has been shown that this was the plan ; and there is no 
doubt that Howe thought he could take Philadelphia, 
and get back to New York in time to execute his part 
of the grand operation. So, indirectly, Washington 
was as much the victor of Saratoga as Gates, but in the 
smoke and dust and heat of the time few men realized it. 
W^hether Patrick Henry grasped the truth, or whether 
he shared the common feeling that Gates was to be 
credited with the Saratoga victory, it is not possible to 
say. When Gates, then humiliated by his Carolina de- 
bacle, passed through Richmond in 1780^ Henry was 
hearty in his greeting, studiously sympathetic, and at- 
tentive in every way. But we know from his own testi- 
mony that he never ceased to regard Washington as the 
genius of the war. Imagine his disgust, therefore, when 
he became aware of an attempt to draw him into the 
Conway conspiracy! His first inkHng of the business 
was in January, 1778, when an unsigned letter, under 
Yorktown date, was placed in his hands. It dwelt upon 

290 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

present perils and past mistakes, artfully flattered Henry 
himself, and proceeded thus : 

"But is our case desperate? By no means. We have 
wisdom, virtue, and strength enough to save us, if they could 
be drawn into action. The Northern Army has shown us what 
Americans are capable of doing, with a general at their head. 
The spirit of the Southern Army is no way inferior to the 
spirit of the Northern. A Gates, a Lee, or a Conway would 
in a few weeks render them an irresistible body of men. The 
last of the above officers has accepted of the new office of 
Inspector-General of our Army, in order to reform abuses ; 
but the remedy is only a palliative one. In one of his letters 
to a friend he says : ' A great and good God hath decreed 
America to be free — or the . . . and weak counsellors 
would have ruined her long ago.' " 

" Even the letter must be thrown into the fire," con- 
cluded the epistolary patriot. 

Instead of burning it, Henry enclosed it, with a letter 
of his own, to Washington. Governor Rutledge, of 
South Carolina, it should be said, did the same with a 
similar communication. Henry wrote that it gave him 
pain to do as he was doing. 

" But," he said, " there may be some scheme or party form- 
ing to your prejudice. ... I am sorry there should be one 
man who counts himself my friend who is not yours. . . . 
Believe me, sir, I have too high a sense of the obligations 
America has to you to abet or countenance so unworthy a 
proceeding. ... It would suit my inclination better to 
give you some assistance in the great business of the war. But 
I will not conceal anything from you by which you may be 
affected ; for I really think your personal welfare and the 
happiness of America are intimately connected. ' 

Henry calculated the time it would take for his warn- 
ing letter to go and an answer to come. Manifestly, he 
was anxious in the matter, for, when the expected reply 
failed to reach him, he wrote again, with deep feeling: 

291 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

" While you face the armed enemies of our liberty in the 
iield, and, by the favor of God, have been kept unhurt, I trust 
your country will never harbor in her bosom the miscreant who 
would ruin her best supporter. I wish not to flatter, but 
when arts, unworthy honest men, are used to defame and tra- 
duce you, I think it not amiss, but a duty, to assure you of 
that estimation in which the public hold you. Not that I think 
that any testimony I can bear is necessary for your support, 
or private satisfaction ; for a bare recollection of what is past 
must give you sufficient pleasure in every circumstance of life. 
But I cannot help assuring you, on this occasion, of the high 
sense of gratitude which all ranks of men in this your native 
country bear to you. It will give me sincerest pleasure to 
manifest my regards, and render my best services to you and 
yours. I do not like to make a parade of these things, and 
I know that you are not fond of it; however, I hope the 
occasion will plead my excuse." 

There is a marked difference in the tone of Wash- 
ington's two letters in reply to Henry's two. The first 
is merely courteous ; the second is characterized by 
warmth and glow, and imparts much confidential matter. 
He thinks that Dr. Rush was Henry's tempter, judging 
from " a similitude of hands." He adds that " General 
Gates was to be exalted on the ruin of my reputation 
and influence. . . . General Mifflin, it is commonly 
supposed, bore the second part in the cabal ; and General 
Conway, I know, was a very active and malignant 
partisan." 

The light of day destroyed the dark thing of which 
we have been telling as illustrative of the varied experi- 
ences in Henry's life. Though Henry no doubt heard 
with interest of the duel in which Cadwalader caused 
Conway literally to taste lead, it is improbable that he 
followed the adventurer's career in far-away Pondi- 
cherry. But if he did, he must have smiled when told 
that Conway had got into a snarl there with the famous 
Tippoo Tib, just as he had done with our own famous 
Washington. 

292 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

During these war days, Henry came in contact with 
many French officers and other foreigners who had ad- 
ventured hither to help America — or, in numerous in- 
tances, to help themselves. Thus, for example, he fur- 
thered the bold scheme of Captain Cotteneau, who later 
served with Paul Jones. Henry was of the mind to lend 
Cotteneau a twenty-gun Virginia ship to " attack our 
foes in Africa." " I long for something of the eclat that 
would attend such an enterprise," said he. Not a few 
of his foreign visitors merely pestered him with im- 
practical schemes ; others won his admiration. In grati- 
tude for certain kind words, Lafayette wrote to him; a 
correspondence followed, and the two formed a lasting 
friendship. That with Albert Gallatin belongs to a 
somewhat later period. '' Patrick Henry advised me 
to go West," said Gallatin, " where I might study law if 
I chose ; but predicted that I was intended for a states- 
man, and told me that this was the career which should 
be my aim ; he also rendered me several services on more 
than one occasion." Colonel Patrick Henry Fontaine 
says that his grandfather drew upon the Latin of his 
" Mount Brilliant " days to piece out conversations with 
the young Swiss, but since Gallatin was in Virginia as 
interpreter for M. Savary de Valcoulon, who had a claim 
against the State, the story is dubious. Doubtless Henry 
knew enough French to read and smile over some 
superscriptions which ran: ''Son Alt esse Roy ale, Mon- 
sieur Patrick Henri, Gouverneur de VEtat de Virginie" 
The address must have made • him think of General 
Charles Lee, who, now disgraced, dwelt by the Shenan- 
doah, w4th his dogs as his only friends. 

Appreciative as he was of such sterling characters as 
Lafayette and Gallatin, there is no doubt that Henry was 
more at home with men like George Rogers Clark. It 
is time to refer to Clark's brilliant stroke beyond the 
mountains ; and this means that we must tell of Clark's 

293 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

relations with Patrick Henry. Jefferson knew Clark as 
a boy, when, with a bag of corn in front of him, he 
reined his horse along the road towards Shadwell grist- 
mill.* Thus Virginia has its mill-boy of Albemarle as 
well as of '' The Slashes." Surveying was Clark's study 
— the border his romantic lure. At twenty he was with 
Dunmore on the Ohio ; later he was in Kentucky ; now, 
at twenty-three, we find him ending an overland pilgrim- 
age of five hundred miles at Governor Henry's home 
in Hanover. If we make for ourselves a mental sketch 
of Clark — robust, soldierly, fluent of speech, a sunburnt 
ranger in buckskin — as he sat in the hall of '' Scotch- 
town " house, talking with Henry, then on sick-leave 
and no doubt showing sallowness, we have a bit of a 
scene that belongs to a series of historic pictures. Such 
a series, we mean, as might well grace the Capitols of 
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin ; for 
these States were carved out of the territory secured by 
Clark — Henry and others helping. At this interview 
Clark told Henry that the settlers in Kentucky had sent 
him after powder. They needed it for use against the 
Indians ; and if Virginia would supply it — so much the 
better for Virginia. Henry had long been apprehensive 
lest an enemy should come out of the West as well as the 
East. The Cherokees, stirred to war by Stuart and other 
British emissaries, had risen under Dragging Canoe and 
Oconostota, but Christian, Shelby, and that " rear-guard 

* In his elaborate volumes, " Conquest of the Country North- 
west of the River Ohio, 1 778-1 783, and Life of General George 
Rogers Clark," William Hayden English expresses doubt as 
to whether Jefferson knew Clark as a lad. From the minute- 
ness of his studies one might suppose that Mr. English had 
exhausted the subject, but there is still much undigested Clark 
material in the Virginia archives. Mr. English gives Patrick 
Henry great credit for his spirited furtherance of Clark's work. 
When Clark had captured Fort Sackville at Vincennes, he 
renamed it " Fort Patrick Henry." 

294 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

of the Revolution " in the romantic Watauga Valley 
had humbled them, had taken hostages, had built " Fort 
Patrick Henry " at the key-point of the region. So in 
that quarter a fresh treaty still held; but Henry was 
less at ease with respect to the savages along the Ohio. 
Therefore, seeing that Kentucky was the buffer and out- 
post of the Commonwealth, he was all readiness to do 
his part. He gave Clark a letter to the Council at Wil- 
liamsburg, and soon wagons with five hundred pounds 
of powder were on the way West. That some of the 
Council at first demurred about sending the supply is 
in no wise to the discredit of this watchful board. A 
great land-ownership dispute was pending, and not until 
later was it settled that Kentucky belonged to the State 
itself rather than to Richard Henderson, who claimed 
it on the strength of Indian purchases. All the old land 
companies lost their Indian lands finally, but throughout 
Henry's early years in the executive chair they gave rise 
to much perplexity. Meantime, Clark's heart was won, 
Kentucky County was set off from Fincastle, and the 
first step had been taken in an exceedingly large matter. 
It was larger, no doubt, than Henry at first conceived. 
In December, 1777, Clark reappeared at Williamsburg. 
It looked now as if the worst of the Revolution were 
over, as if by blood and sweat the patriots would 
reach the hill-top and see the broad republic down below 
— fertile bottoms, forests, innumerable places for peace- 
ful homes. Perhaps Clark saw more. Perhaps he saw 
the prairies beyond the forests. At any rate, he at once 
interested Jefferson, Wythe, and Mason in a bold plan 
that had come into his head. On the morning of the 
loth of December the plan was submitted to Henry. It 
was Clark's own idea of the one true way to defend 
the far-stretching borderland from the Lakes to the 
Cherokee Mountains. He said that the chief menace 
in the West was the chain of British forts that stretched 

295 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

from Lake Huron to the Mississippi — from Detroit to 
Kaskaskia. Out of these, as from hatching-places, sav- 
age enemies might sally at any time. Governor Ham- 
ilton at Detroit might give the word when it pleased 
him to do so, and then might come such a tempest as 
that which had just swept the Wyoming Valley. The 
way to defend Virginia was to make Hamilton defend 
Detroit. Would the gentlemen help him? 

Clark had willing listeners. It will not do to say that 
possibly some of them saw further in the matter than 
he did himself ; but as the four men to whom he talked 
were veterans in statecraft, it may have been so. The 
historical painter certainly has a remarkable group here 
— Clark, Jefferson, Mason, Wythe, Henry. When they 
put their heads together for the conquest of the Illinois 
country, there was as notable a conjunction as one often 
reads about, and it was over a matter of magnitude. 
They cooperated zealously. That very morning the 
Governor sent a letter to the Legislature. It was neces- 
sary to be secret. But if the letter seemed enigmatical, 
Jefferson, Mason, and Wythe were on the spot to push 
through the necessary bill — which they did. Clark was 
authorized to execute his plan, and the State agreed to 
supply him with men and money. Henry's instructions 
to Clark, as issued through the Privy Council, have been 
praised for their humanity. Butler, in his " History of 
Kentucky," declares that " they form a monument of 
durable glory in the Revolutionary annals of our parent 
State." And Americans will never be done glorifying 
the achievements of Clark. He started down the Ohio 
in May ; captured Kaskaskia, Vincennes, and other posts ; 
broke the British power in the North-west, and sent 
Hamilton a prisoner to Williamsburg. With his hun- 
dred and eighty riflemen, he passed through great 
danger and hardship. Henry's letter to the Virginia 
delegates in Congress and a subsequent letter to Gen- 

296 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

eral Washington on the subject of the conquest show 
no undue elation ; but beyond doubt he was happy in 
the feeling that much of the glory belonged to Virginia 
as a State, and perhaps some to him and his advisers. 
'' That country was ours/' declared John Randolph, 
" by a double title — by charter and by conquest." Ran- 
dolph spoke of Clark as *' the Hannibal of the West," 
and with that fondness for classic comparisons which 
pleased the taste of his own generation, but offends that 
of ours, likened Clark's heroes, when in wintry weather 
they waded up to their breasts through the " drowned 
lands of the Wabash," to Hannibal's soldiers crossing 
the Thrasymene marsh. But, as Randall points out, 
Clark was more heroic than Hannibal, who had one 
elephant left on which to ride without getting wet, 
whereas Clark was on foot. All of which would have 
amused the hardy followers of the matter-of-fact Clark, 
just as it amuses the people who read the comparison 
to-day. It is the incongruity that makes us shake our 
heads. It is the feeling that the sense of proportion is 
violated. We want no Hannibal in mind when we think 
of the pluck of our grandfathers, who waded for five 
days in icy water that they might seize the key to a 
vast region, which was to become the home of a teeming 
population, with no king or conqueror within the con- 
tinental bounds. 

Before turning away from the subject of the North- 
west Territory, let us note two great sequential events 
of the time. Virginia saw that France hesitated to 
confirm the alliance with America because all the States 
had not adopted the Articles of Confederation. Mary- 
land hung back, on the contention that the other States 
possessing Western territory must first cede it to the 
Union. To seal the Union, Virginia gave up the land — 
an act of patriotism, at least, if not of magnanimity. 
Again, when, by the ordinance of 1787, slavery was 

297 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

forever excluded from the North-west Territory, it was 
to the credit of the people of Henry's State that they 
said " Amen ! " 

Whatever the errors of his administration, it is plain 
that Patrick Henry was a vigilant and hard-working 
Governor. A less circumspect executive, for instance, 
might have neglected to police " the back settlements " ; 
but Henry was ever watchful of them. Just before the 
close of his administration, he sent a band of " over- 
mountain men " under Colonel Evan Shelby to chastise 
the Cherokees. Thus the foes on the border were 
cowed and kept so ; and when the time came for the 
frontiersmen to concentrate in an exigent crisis, they 
were ready. King's Mountain was the place where 
they finally cut their names in rock that bids fair to last 
for ages. 

As Henry was the first of the Commonwealth Gov- 
ernors, many Virginia precedents were set by him. He 
was first to use the expression " fellow-citizens." He 
was first to exercise enlarged powers. He was probably 
first to encounter a difficulty between the Federal and 
State authorities — General Hand of the Continental 
service having taken it upon himself to order up Vir- 
ginia militia to join him at Pittsburg. But apparently 
the precedents and difficulties were well considered. 
The Executive Council, which Madison joined on Jan- 
uary 14, 1778, was equal to its duties. Henry deferred 
to the board, preserved its harmony, and utilized it in 
improving the machinery of government. It was held 
by some of Henry's close adherents that he was entitled 
to another term. They said that when he was first 
chosen, it was by the Fifth Convention and not by the 
Legislature. This was a quibble, and Henry would 
have none of it. On May 28, 1779, he notified the 
Assembly of his purpose to retire; and on June I 
Thomas Jefferson succeeded him. 

298 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

Jefferson expected a great deal of himself as Gover- 
nor of Virginia. His friends also looked to see him 
bring honor upon himself. He was thirty-six, and a 
growing man. But, vigorous as he was and versatile 
as he was, he had little military outlook. He was essen- 
tially a civilian. Do we need to remind ourselves of our 
unpreparedness for war when he left the White House ? 
Obviously, he was a practical philosopher, a law-giver, 
a great politician ; but he was undeveloped on the fight- 
ing side. When he became Governor, he was intent 
upon liberalizing the laws, and it is likely that he thought 
too much upon this matter and too little upon the real 
problem before him. Thus it happened that when he 
retired at the end of his second term, he was humiliated 
— mortified beyond measure. 

In fairness to Jefferson, it should be said that both the 
wind and the tide of war were against him. We have 
seen that Virginia's commissarial service had been im- 
mense. She had long been '' a nursery of raw soldiers, 
horses, and provisions " for the Northern and Southern 
armies. So, when she herself was struck, much of her 
strength was gone. With some ten thousand men in 
the Continental service, she was unable to find guns for 
the home guard. There was a factory at Falmouth, 
but it was inadequate. At the outset of the war armories 
and arsenals should have been built and gunsmiths 
brought over from Europe. Now it was too late; and 
even if there had been time to organize and equip a 
standing army, it would not have been done. We recall 
Landon Carter's criticism of Henry, who did not take 
counsel of his " fears " at all when he tried to strengthen 
the State soldiery, but of his common sense. The fact 
is that about the time Henry stepped out and Jefferson 
in, the people became apathetic. " The French 
Alliance," says Henry S. Randall, " without yet intro- 
ducing into the country anything like a counterpoise to 

299 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

the British strength, had infused a fatal security into 
the pubUc mind." EnHstments were difficult. The 
Legislature reflected the public feeling. As for Wash- 
ington, Henry, and other leaders, they were far more 
despondent during this period than they had ever been 
before. In a letter to Mason, Henry said : 

" I view things very differently, I fear, from what people 
in general do. I have seen without despondency (even for a 
moment) the hours which America has styled her gloomy ones, 
but I have beheld no day since the commencement of hostilities 
that I have thought her liberties in such imminent danger as 
at present. Friends and foes seem now to combine to pull 
down the goodly fabric we have hitherto been raising at the 
expense of so much time, blood, and treasure — and unless the 
bodies politic will exert themselves to bring things back to 
first principles, correct abuses, and punish our internal foes, 
inevitable ruin must follow. Indeed, we seem to be verging 
so fast to destruction, that I am filled with sensations to 
which I have been a stranger till within these three months. 
Our enemy behold with exultation and joy how effectually 
we labor for their benefit, and from being in a state of absolute 
despair, and on the point of evacuating America, are now on 
tiptoe." 

He concludes that Spain must intervene or affairs 
will be still worse. It is true that Henry was low- 
spirited on account of sickness, but his head was clear. 
He wrote to Jefferson, confessing his " anxieties for our 
Commonwealth." " Tell me," he asked, " do you re- 
member any instance where tyranny was destroyed, and 
freedom established on its ruins, among a people pos- 
sessing so small a share of virtue and public spirit? 
I recollect none ; and this, more than the British arms, 
makes me fearful of final success, without a reform." 
Henry was rather close to his Tacitus here — " a people 
without morals may acquire liberty, but without morals 
they cannot preserve it." 

But the Revolution was soon to rekindle in Virginia, 

300 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

and she herself was to feel the scourge of war. Let us 
recall the facts of the general situation. The war was 
now world-wide. England was fighting in both hemi- 
spheres and on almost all the seas. Of her 314,000 
soldiers, she could spare no more armies of the size of 
Burgoyne's to conduct the operations that would be 
necessary to . checkmate and overpower Washington. 
France was active on land and sea. Spain, sure enough, 
as Henry had hoped, declared war, seeking to reacquire 
Gibraltar and the Floridas. There was bloody turmoil 
in India. So it was decided by Lord George Germain 
to overrun Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia — to wear 
the " rebels " out with raids and ruination. Hence the 
change in the course and character of the war. It 
swung South. It became more ferocious. Arnold, w^ith 
twenty-seven sail, passed in between the Capes in Jan- 
uary, 1781 ; Phillips, whom Jefferson called " the proud- 
est man of the proudest nation on earth," appeared 
in March ; Cornwallis, in May. And why Cornwallis, 
who by rights was Greene's foe? Greene had done a 
most amazing thing. After his battle with Cornwallis, 
he had kept on South, reconquering the Carolinas. It 
was winning strategy, but Virginia became the sacrifice. 
Out of the North Lafayette hurried ; then Wayne ; then 
Washington. But meantime terrible things happened 
in Virginia, and piquantly funny things as well. We 
come, indeed, to a tragicomedy of the Revolution — the 
great Tarleton drama, preceding* Yorktown. The trag- 
edy is found in the British depredations. His Lordship, 
Cornwallis, is said to have pocketed silver plate. But 
this would have been as nothing if he had not permitted 
houses to be burned and plantations swept of their slaves 
and stock. The throats of colts were cut. Of the thirty 
thousand black people carried off, twenty-seven thousand 
are estimated to have died of small-pox and camp fever. 
The devastations amounted to three millions sterling. 

301 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

At this period Henry lived in the county that bore 
his own name, representing it in the Assembly. Early 
in the year General Greene, then on the Dan, had written 
to Jefferson : *' Our force is so inferior that every exer- 
tion in the State of Virginia is necessary to support us. 
I have taken the liberty to write to Mr. Henry to collect 
fourteen or fifteen hundred volunteers to aid us." Ap- 
parently Henry exerted himself, for in a little while 
great numbers of militia-men gathered on the north bank 
of the Dan. They saw Greene march away, however, 
and within a few weeks Henry heard of the Cornwallis 
invasion. Grigsby puzzles us somewhat when he says: 

" Of all men of the Revolution, Patrick Henry displayed the 
greatest spirit . . . yet so deeply impressed was he with the 
peril of the period that, when Greene had reached Halifax 
old Court-house in his retreat before CornwalHs, and when 
Cornwallis himself was on the banks of the Dan waiting a 
fall of water, instead of haranguing the people of Henry, where 
he then was, and marching with the levy of his county en 
masse to harass the foe, fearing lest he might be captured by 
the scouting parties of the enemy, he hastened from the 
scene of war to Hanover. An honorable death in a fair field 
he did not dread, but he dreaded an ignominious death on the 
scaffold or from a tree. The intercepted letter of Cornwallis 
to Nisbett Balfour, dictated on the spur of a momentary tri- 
umph, proves incontestably that the success of the British would 
have been written in the blood of the purest and greatest 
men of whom our country could boast." 

Henry had reason to suspect that he would be hanged 
if taken, and he had no idea of riding into the arms 
of the British dragoons. His uncle, Anthony Winston, 
of Buckingham, had an indentured servant, Peter Fran- 
cisco, who put nine of them to flight in an encounter 
of glorious record in the school-books ; but Henn^ was 
less Samsonian and less eager to distinguish himself. 
Nevertheless, he did all he could in the emergency. 
Even if he failed to " harangue " the Henry County 

302 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

militia-men, we know from the Calendar of Virginia 
State Papers that they joined Greene " in greater num- 
bers than called for " ; and it is probable that Henry 
left home, not for Hanover, but for Richmond, where 
the Legislature was about to meet in extra session — 
when Cornwallis came knocking at the door. Congress 
had run away from Philadelphia twice — to Baltimore in 
1776, and to York in 1777. Legislatures had repeatedly 
changed capitals. So the Virginia Assembly, Henry 
accompanying, rode up to Charlottesville. 

Jefferson, meantime, was powerless. He is said to 
have ridden his horse to death in his efforts to protect 
the public stores. If so, he was soon astride of another 
and away for Monticello. Now, Banastre Tarleton, 
Cornwallis' " hunting leopard, glossy, beautifully mot- 
tled, but swift and fell," had it in mind to come up with 
Jefferson, Henry, and other gentlemen of like politics. 
Therefore he, too, struck north for Albemarle, riding at 
the head of his dragoons, whose white uniforms faced 
with green caught many an eye peering forth from 
roadside houses. One pair of eyes belonged to Captain 
John Jouette, who was at the Cuckoo Tavern in Henry's 
old county of Louisa. Jouette, in scarlet coat and hat 
with waving plume, soon sped away on a blooded horse 
— likewise making for Charlottesville. But he took a 
" disused and shorter route," cut around Tarleton, 
stopped to see Jefferson at Monticello, and reached 
the objective point in time to warn the Assembly, which 
adjourned to Staunton, in the Shenandoah Valley. We 
are glad to set it down that the honorable members 
*' breakfasted at leisure " before departing for the Blue 
Ridge. 

As we follow Tarleton — who on this raid, upon a 
sudden alarm, sprang into his saddle with one cheek 
fresh-shaved and the other lathered — we come upon 
some former friends of ours, namely. Judge Peter Lyons, 

303 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Henry's old antagonist in the Parsons' Cause, and 
Colonel John Syme, Henry's half-brother. It was night, 
so Tarleton pulled them out of their beds. Lyons was 
a man of tremendous frame, weighing nearly three hun- 
dred pounds. He looked so like a " Jack Falstaff " that 
the dragoons fell into a fit of laughter, some of them 
shouting and rolling over and over on the ground. 
And when Syme, " who was remarkably homely, was 
brought from his bedroom undressed, and with dishev- 
elled hair, the celebrated cavalryman threw himself into 
the attitude of Hamlet upon discovering his father's 
ghost, and exclaimed: 

" ' Angels and ministers of grace defend us ! 

Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned ? ' " 

Having sent his family away, Jefferson watched 
through a telescope for Tarleton's coming. He was 
high up on Carter's Mountain. He saw no sign of the 
enemy in Charlottesville and started from the outlook 
on his return to the house, when he missed his light 
walking-sword from its sheath. It had slipped out 
while he was kneeling on the rock to focus the lens. 
He went back after his sword, and again looked down 
into Charlottesville. The place swarmed with troopers 
in white coats. He mounted and rode awav. If he had 
only done what Martin, one of his slaves, did ! Martin 
hid with the family silver under the porch floor till the 
enemy had come and gone. He was under close cover 
for eighteen hours, and became a Monticello hero. That 
would have been exceedingly undignified for Jefferson ; 
but it would have been romantic, and his course was 
unromantic in the extreme. He disappeared, and, 
though his term as Governor had just expired, he was 
greatly blamed. Poplar Forest, in Bedford County, was 
the place of his retirement. Nothing in his career so 

304 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

troubled Jefferson as this experience. He felt that his 
enemies would accuse him of cowardice ; and they did 
so accuse him. Later in life the stories about his flight 
from Monticello were given their worst possible twist, 
and he resented them bitterly. It is a contumelious 
world. 

Taking the Staunton road, we find fresh matter for 
comedy. Seven of the legislators were captured by the 
dragoons. General Adam Stevens, in farmer's dress 
and riding a sorry horse, was passed pell-mell by a 
squadron who caught sight of Jouette's scarlet cloak. 
Jouette led them a long chase and a wild one. Perhaps 
Henry, in covert, saw them pass. With him, as he 
reached a cabin in a gorge of the hills, were Judge 
John Tyler, Colonel William Christian, and Benjamin 
Harrison. They were fatigued. They were hungry. 
They stopped at the door and asked for refreshments. 
What happened is best told in Abel's " Life of John 
Tyler": 

" A woman, the sole occupant of the house, inquired of 
them who they were, and where from. * We are members of 
the Legislature,' said Mr. Henry, * and have just been compelled 
to leave Charlottesville on account of the approach of the 
enemy.' ' Ride on, then, ye cowardly knaves ! ' replied the old 
woman, in a tone of excessive indignation. ' Here have my 
husband and sons just gone to Charlottesville to fight for 
ye, and you running away v/ith all your might ! Clear out — 
ye shall have nothing here.' ' But,' Mr. Henry rejoined, in 
an expostulating tone, ' we were obliged to fly. It would not 
do for the Legislature to be broken up by the enemy. Here is 
Mr. Speaker Harrison ; you don't think he would have fled had 
it not been necessary ? ' 'I always thought a good deal of 
Mr. Harrison till now,' the old woman answered, ' but he 'd 
no business to run from the enemy ; ' and she was about to 
shut the door in their faces. ' Wait a moment, my good woman.' 
again interposed Mr. Henry ; * you would hardly believe Mr. 
Tyler or Colonel Christian would take to flight if there were 
not good cause for so doing.' ' No, indeed ; that I would n't,' she 
replied. ' But Mr, Tyler and Colonel Christian are here,' said 

20 30s 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

he. ' They here ? Well, I never would have thought it,' and she 
stood a moment as if in doubt, but finally added, ' No matter ; 
we love those gentlemen, and I didn't suppose they would ever 
run from the British, but since they have, they shall have noth- 
ing to eat in my house. You may ride along.' As a last resort, 
Mr. Tyler then stepped forward, and said, ' What would you 
say, my good woman, if I were to tell you that Patrick Henry 
fied with the rest of us ? ' ' Patrick Henry ! I would tell you 
there was n't a word of truth in it,' she answered angrily ; 
' Patrick Henry would never do such a cowardly thing.' ' But 
this is Mr. Henry,' rejoined Mr. Tyler, pointing him out. The 
old woman looked astonished. After a moment's consideration, 
and a twitch or two at her apron string by way of recovering 
her scattered thoughts, she said, ' Well, then, if that is Patrick 
Henry, it must be all right. Come in, and ye shall have the 
best I have in the house.' Perhaps no better compliment was 
ever paid to the patriotism of Patrick Henry than this simple 
tribute of praise from the mouth of that poor but noble woman." 

Various tales are told in the Valley concerning the 
fugitives. Colonel William Lewis is said to have ex- 
claimed within earshot of the object of his eulogy: " If 
Patrick Henry had been in Albemarle, the British dra- 
goons never would have passed the Rivanna River." 
Jocular tradition even goes so far as to assure us that 
in a night alarm at Staunton Henry made off with the 
other members, lost one of his boots, and blushed to the 
roots of his wig when a negro ran up to him with the 
missing piece of foot-leather. But fact sternly checks 
tradition here. There was an alarm ; but it happened 
in the daytime, on a Sunday, and the Legislature, in . 
quiet session, decided to adjourn to the Warm Springs, 
provided the story of the approach of the dragoons 
should be verified. As the upcoming soldiers proved 
to be Americans, the Assembly continued to sit at 
Staunton until its work was done. 

We have seen that Henry was prone to do his public 
duty, whether he hurt the feelings of people or not. 
He had suffered, we think, because of his treatment of 

3Q6 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

Carter Braxton ; and he was to suffer infinitely more be- 
cause of something he did in connection with the humili- 
ating interregnum then existing. Jefferson's term had 
ended on the second of June ; it was the twelfth of that 
month before his successor. General Thomas Nelson, 
was chosen. Edmund Randolph says : 

" At this session of the Assembly, the usual antidote for 
public distress was resorted to. Two persons were named with 
acrimony as delinquent : Baron Steuben, for not having suc- 
ceeded in protecting the stores in the vicinity of Point of 
Fork, and Thomas Jefferson, the Governor, at the time of 
Arnold's invasion, as not having made some exertions which 
he might have made for the defence of the country. . . . 
Colonel George Nicholas and Mr. Patrick Henry were those 
who charged Mr. Jefferson. They aimed to express themselves 
with delicacy towards him, without weakening the ground on 
which they supposed that their suspicions would be found 
ultimately to stand. But, probably without design, they wounded 
by their measured endeavor to avoid the infliction of a wound." 

It was Nicholas who moved '' that at the next session 
of Assembly an inquiry be made into the conduct of 
the Executive of this State for the last twelve months." 
But it was Henry who got the blame for it at Poplar 
Forest. From that time on, until the end of his life, 
Jefferson was at outs with Patrick Henry. There were 
two Henrys in his mind — the younger Henry, who had 
led the long battle for freedom, and the older Henry, 
who had dared to touch the raw wound that tortured 
him. This was the time of the genesis of his bitterness. 
He had never liked it, perhaps, because Henry could 
speak so well, while he himself was so lacking in voice, 
and he had doubtless felt some chagrin in comparing 
Henry's record as Governor with his own ; but these 
things would not have mattered — it was the Staunton 
insult that rankled in his heart, which was a proud 
heart indeed, with fine ruffles above it. Emphasis is 
here laid upon the incident for the reason that Jefferson 

.307 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

not only wrote about Henry after Henry was dead, but 
inspired the writings of other men whose words have 
been repeated in hundreds of lesser books. Thus we 
find that there are many readers to-day who accept the 
overcolored tale as to a dictatorship, and even swallow 
the moonshine of Taylor as to Henry's willingness to 
give up the fight in 1781. John Taylor, of Caroline, was 
a blood-relative of Pendleton, and his protege. At the 
age of 74, being then within six months of his grave, 
he told John Quincy Adams that Henry wished Virginia 
to be the '' first to submit to Great Britain, in order that 
she might obtain the most favorable terms." Uttered 
forty-three years after the incident alleged, this strange 
calumny is embedded in Adams' diary. People read it, 
and wonder. They know that if Henry had urged such 
a matter in the House — and Taylor so avers — many men 
would have remembered it. Some of them subsequently 
opposed Henry with bitterness and rancor, and it would 
have helped them greatly if they could have pointed a 
scornful finger at him. No one did so. They knew 
that he was the same strong man and patriot in 1781, 
1782, and 1783 as in the preceding years. He was the 
recognized leader. Jefferson himself, referring to a 
measure which he wished to introduce, and the attitude 
of the majority, said : '' It was considered hopeless to at- 
tempt it with such an opponent at their head as Henr3^" 
But if Taylor of Caroline did not have so much as a 
half-truth upon which to base his politician's dream, it 
must be said that there was usually a foundation for 
the Monticello tales. Girardin caught them and colored 
them to suit, and put them Into that now rare fourth 
volume of Burk. He says that the plan was to " im- 
peach " Jefferson in order to set Henry up as Dictator. 
Now it is a fact that there was open talk of a dictatorship 
in the Tarleton crisis. Judge Archibald Stuart says that 
Henry seconded the Dictator motion in the House at 

308 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

Staunton, observing that " it was immaterial to him 
whether the officer proposed was called a Dictator, or 
Governor with enlarged powers, or by any other name, 
yet surely an officer armed with such powers was neces- 
sary to restrain the unbridled fury of a licentious 
enemy." But, says Judge Stuart, the motion that Henry 
seconded provided for the appointment, not of Patrick 
Henry, but of George Washington. So the Monticello 
perversion is apparent in this matter, as in many other 
matters connected with Henry's career. 

Henry, for his part, never abused Jefferson. He 
would not have prompted the Jefferson inquiry if he 
had not felt it to be his sworn duty to do so. No man 
was kinder hearted — no man less envious of other men 
in the public service. But he vv^as not afraid. As it 
proved, the resolution of inquiry was superfluous. 
Nicholas regretted that he had made it, apologized to 
Jefferson, and became his ardent follower. The inquiry 
was held, but by that time something had happened — 
something that caused the sun to burst forth and shine 
from one end of America to the other, something truly 
glorious and unforgettable. Tarleton was trapped — 
Cornwallis — all of them. It was Yorktown that lifted 
the clouds. The war was as good as over. 

And somehow, having- mentioned the big happening, 
we are reminded of a little happening — a very little 
happening — in the woods near Yorktown. It was a re- 
tired spot, and there were two persons present — General 
Washington and '' Pete," his servant. The General 
swished air with his horsewhip, and " Pete " danced. 
It was no legislative inquiry ; nevertheless, it was an 
inquiry. It was as if the great man had said : " Now, 
you rascal ! It's your turn. For seven long years have 
I busied myself in bloody contention. I have marched, 
I have fought, I have beaten the haughtiest of human- 
kind — and now, sir, I'm going to gad yon!'' 

309 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

And with this realistic bit, if we were a humorist, 
might we end the Revolutionary War. But in truth 
it had been a sad and cruel and most exhausting war. 
Not long after Appomattox, some one at the Virginia 
Springs made note of a strange sight in a ballroom. 
On the floor there was no lack of beautiful women, but 
they danced without partners. Against the walls sat a 
few men — all maimed. So, too, when the Chevalier de 
Chastellux travelled through Virginia, after the surren- 
der of Cornwallis, he observed great numbers of men 
who had suffered grievous wounds. The actual hard- 
ship of those heroic times is apt to be glanced over and 
forgotten, as we search the records for the pleasing, 
the romantic, or the glorious. 

Before the French soldiers scattered their silver broad- 
cast in Virginia, there had been a long coin famine. 
Boys " able to shoulder a musket had never seen a 
guinea." Paper money was worth little, and trade was 
out of joint. A great number of legislative enactments 
bearing upon matters sequential to the war or to the 
change in government were needed ; and Henry brought 
forward and pushed through some of the most im- 
portant of the bills. Hening's " Statutes " and the Vir- 
ginia Legislative Records set forth in detail these 
various measures. Twice a year, in the spring and in 
the fall, Henry rode up to Richmond from his new 
home down near the North Carolina line, and took his 
place as leader in the House. His chief enemy, it seems, 
was one of his best friends — Richard Henry Lee. They 
got along well in private, but frequently differed in the 
Assembly. Judge Roane, himself a member, tells us 
that " Henry was almost always victorious over Lee." 
He adds : " I once heard Mr. Lee say in a pet, after 
sustaining a great defeat, that if the votes were weighed 
instead of being counted, he would not have lost it." 
And again Roane says : " As an orator Mr. Henry 

310 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

demolished Madison with as much ease as Samson did 
the cords that bound him before he was shorn." 

But as Judge Roane's memorandum with respect to 
Henry is iUuminating throughout, it is better to print 
what he says, word for word; and accordingly we do 
so in an appendix to this volume. Though Henry '' de- 
molished " Madison, there is reason to believe that the 
elder statesman gave his hand most heartily to such' 
rising juniors as Breckenridge, who became Attorney- 
General, Grayson, who figured conspicuously as United 
States Senator, and Marshall, who won the high regard 
of all as Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court. Indeed, 
Lee and Henry needed the help of the younger men. 
Mason, who never liked to quit his congenial home- 
work on the Potomac shore, wrote to Henry : 

" I congratulate you, most sincerely, on the accomplish- 
ment of what I know was the warmest wish of your heart, 
the establishment of American independence and the liberty 
of our country. We are now to rank among the nations of the 
world; but whether our independence shall prove a blessing 
or a curse, must depend upon our own wisdom or folly, virtue 
or wickedness. Judging of the future from the past, the 
prospect is not promising. Justice and virtue are the vital 
principles of republican government; but among us a depravity 
of manners and morals prevails, to the destruction of all 
confidence between man and man. It greatly behooves the 
Assembly to revise several of our laws, and to abolish all such 
as are contrary to the fundamental principles of justice. . . . 
It is in your power, my dear sir, to do more good and prevent 
more mischief than any man in this State ; and I doubt not 
that you will exert the great talents with which God has blessed 
you, in promoting the public happiness and prosperity." 

" To prevent mischief and to do good " seems to have 
been Henry's motto all through this period of his public 
service. He thought out the knotty and pressing 
problems of the time, and, wherever it was practical, 
drew up and pushed through the necessary bills. Many 

311 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

of these were remedial, such as the funding measure and 
the bill for adjusting debts and contracts. Others were 
in the interest of education, and to further various inter- 
nal improvements. He was especially interested in the 
establishment of Hampden-Sidney College, and is cred- 
ited with the stipulation in its charter that none should 
be teachers there save those with a " sincere affection 
for the liberty and independence of the United States." 

Critics of Henry's career, seeking to hold him to the 
line of his avowed principles, point to his support of the 
general assessment bill as a departure from the course 
marked out by his own beacons. The bill proposed to 
support religious teachers by taxation. How could 
Henry, a pioneer in advocacy of religious freedom, 
countenance such a measure? But there is a world of 
difference between Henry's championship of religious 
liberty and his championship of religion itself. The 
war had left wickedness in its trail — great wickedness 
and demoralization. Moreover, Rousseau had sent his 
ideas across the ocean, and certain forehints of an 
atheistic world-wave had alarmed Henry, who had pro- 
found faith and reverence. He was a religious man in 
the unconventional sense. He meant to favor no par- 
ticular sect, but to aid every incorporated religious body 
in Virginia. He felt that society is based upon sound 
morals, and that without the churches decay would come, 
and ruin. 

Of the speeches made by Henry during this period, 
three were particularly forcible and picturesque. He 
wished to do away with all restraints on British com- 
merce. Judge Tyler spoke in opposition to any change. 
" In reply," says Tyler, " he was beyond all expression 
eloquent and sublime. After painting the distress of 
the people, struggling through a perilous war, cut off 
from commerce so long that they were naked and un- 
clothed, he concluded with a figure, or rather with a' 

312 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

series of figures, which I shall never forget, because, 
beautiful as they were in themselves, their effect was 
heightened beyond all description by the manner in 
which he acted what he spoke. ' Why,' said he, ' should 
we fetter commerce? If a man is in chains, he droops 
and bows to the earth, for his spirits are broken (look- 
ing sorrowfully at his feet) ; but let him twist the fetters 
from his legs, and he will stand erect,' — straightening 
himself, and assuming a look of proud defiance. ' Fetter 
not commerce, sir — let her be as free as the air — she 
will range the whole creation, and return on the wings 
of the four winds of heaven to bless the land with 
plenty.' " 

Tyler, a sincere man of fiery nature — very able, very 
patriotic — also opposed Henry in the matter of the return 
of the Tories. Henry advocated their restoration to 
citizenship. He said: 

" We have, sir, an extensive country without population — 
what can be more obvious policy than that this country ought 
to be populated? People, sir, constitute the strength and 
form the wealth of a nation. I want to see our vast forests 
filled up by a process a little more speedy than the ordinary 
course of nature. I wish to see these States rapidly ascend- 
ing to the rank which their natural advantages authorize them 
to hold among the nations of the earth. Cast your eye, sir, 
over this extensive country — observe the salubrity of your 
climate, the variety and fertility of your soil — and see that 
soil intersected in every quarter by bold, navigable streams, 
flowing to the east and to the west, as if the finger of heaven 
were marking out the course of your settlements, inviting you 
to enterprise, and pointing the way to wealth. Sir, you are 
destined, at some time or other, to become a great agricultural 
and commercial people; the only question is whether you 
choose to reach this point by slow gradations, and at some 
distant period — lingering on through a long and sickly minority 
— subjected, meanwhile, to machinations, insults, and oppres- 
sions of enemies, foreign and domestic, without sufficient 
strength to resist and chastise them — or whether you choose 
to rush at once, as it were, to the full enjoyment of those 

313 



•THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

high destinies, and be able to cope, single-handed, with the 
proudest oppressors of the old world. If you prefer the 
latter course, as I trust you do, encourage the husbandmen, 
the mechanics, the merchants of the old world to come and 
settle in this land of promise — make it the home of the skilful, 
the industrious, the fortunate, the happy, as well as the asylum 
of the distressed. . . . But, sir, you must have men. . . . 
Do you ask how you are to get them? Open your doors, 
sir, and they will come in. . . . Sir, they are already stand- 
ing on tiptoe upon their native shores, and looking to your 
coasts with a wistful and longing eye. . . . They see a 
land in which liberty hath taken up her abode . . . her 
altars rising . . , her glories chanted. . . . But gentle- 
men object to any accession from Great Britain, and particu- 
larly to the return of British refugees. . . . Let us have the 
magnanimity, sir, to lay aside our antipathies and prejudices. 
. . . I have no fear of any mischief that they can do us. 
Afraid of them ! What, sir, shall we, who have laid the proud 
British lion at our feet, now be afraid of his whelps ? " 

William Wirt tells us that Chancellor Wythe was so 
delighted with the lion-and-whelp passage in this power- 
ful speech that he got into the habit of quoting it to 
his law class at William and Mary College. 

Henry triumphed in this instance, as on many other 
occasions. One of his devices was oratorical drollery. 
Tyler, then Speaker, and a large number of influential 
delegates wished to lay taxes " commensurate with all 
the public demands.'' Henry thought that a people 
so lately war-ridden should be exempted from taxation 
as long as possible. Judge Archibald Stuart, who was 
present, tells of the scene when the Tyler party, having 
overcome Henry in Committee of the Whole, brought in 
their bill. Judge Stuart says: 

" Mr. Henry, who had been excited and roused by his recent 
defeat, came forward again in all the majesty of his power. 
For some time after he commenced speaking, the countenances 
of his opponents indicated no apprehensions of danger to 
their cause. The feelings of Mr, Tyler, which were sometimes 
warm, could not on that occasion be concealed, even in the 

314 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

chair. His countenance was forbidding, even repulsive, and 
his face turned from the speaker. Mr. Tazewell was reading 
a pamphlet ; and Mr. Page was more than usually grave. After 
some time, however, it was discovered that Mr. Tyler's coun- 
tenance gradually began to relax ; he would occasionally look 
at Mr. Henry ; sometimes smile ; his attention by degrees 
became more fixed ; at length it became completely so : — he 
next appeared to be in good humor ; he leaned towards Mr. 
Henry — appeared charmed and delighted, and finally lost in 
wonder and amazement. The progress of these feelings was 
legible in his countenance. 

*' Mr. Henry drew a most affecting picture of the state of 
poverty and suffering in which the people of the upper counties 
had been left by the war. His delineations of their wants 
and wretchedness were so minute, so full of feeling, and withal 
so true, that he could scarcely fail to enlist on his side every 
sympathetic mind. He contrasted the severe toil by which 
they had to gain their daily subsistence with the facilities en- 
joyed by the people of the lower counties. The latter, he said, 
residing on the salt rivers and creeks, could draw their sup- 
plies at pleasure from the waters that flowed by their doors ; 
and then he presented such a ludicrous image of the members 
who had advocated the bill (the most of whom were from the 
lower counties), peeping and peering along the shores of the 
creeks to pick up their mess of crabs, or paddling off to the 
oyster rocks to rake for their daily bread, as filled the House 
with a roar of merriment. Mr. Tazewell laid down his pam- 
phlet and shook his sides with laughter ; even the gravity of Mr. 
Page was affected ; a corresponding change of countenance 
prevailed through the ranks of the advocates of the bill, and 
you might discover that they had surrendered their cause. In 
this they were not disappointed ; for on a division, Mr. Henry 
had a majority of upwards of thirty against the bill." 

" I have seen him," says Judge Tyler, " reply to Page, 
H. Tazewell, R. H. Lee, and others with such a volume 
of wit and humor that the House would be in an uproar 
of laughter, and even set his opponents altogether in a 
perfect convulsion. But this talent he not often in- 
dulged, deeming it beneath a statesman." 

About this time, Lee, Henry, and other members of 
the Legislature spent a night at Edmund Randolph's 

315 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

house, near Richmond. According to Wirt, Lee " en- 
tertained the company to a very late hour, descanting 
on the genius of Cervantes, especially as it was dis- 
played in ' Don Quixote.' Finally the company began 
to yawn, but Colonel Lee did not observe it, and con- 
tinued his remarks. Mr. Henry took in the situation, 
and rising slowly from his chair walked across the room, 
remarking that ' Don Quixote ' was certainly a most 
excellent work, and most skilfully adapted to the pur- 
pose of the author; 'but,' said he, 'Mr. Lee,' stopping 
before him with a most significant archness of look, ' you 
have overlooked, in your eulogy, one of the finest things 
in the work.' ' What is that? ' asked Lee. ' It is,' said 
Mr. Henry, ' that divine exclamation of Sancho : 
*' Blessed be the man that first invented sleep ; it covers 
one all over like a cloak." ' Mr. Lee took the hint, and 
the company broke up in good humor." 

Henry again became Governor on November 30, 
1784, succeeding Benjamin Harrison. He opposed 
Colonel Arthur Campbell's attempt to divide Virginia 
into two States, and also helped to bring about the 
abandonment of the plan of Sevier and others to set up 
the State of Franklin. He was interested in the steam- 
boat ideas of John Fitch, who visited him in Richmond ; 
corresponded with Jefferson with regard to Houdon's 
statue of W^ashington, and with Washington himself 
on the subject of internal navigation. His fifth term 
extended from the fall of 1785 to the fall of 1786, when 
he declined, for a reason hereinafter noted, to serve a 
sixth time. His popularity was unabated. He himself 
seemed to be growing broader and broader in his views. 
In fact, he even advocated the encouragement of mar- 
riages between whites and Indians — an evidence of lib- 
erality little appreciated by some of his admirers.* As 

* It is evident that Henry was not without his vagaries — who 

316 



AS AN EXECUTIVE 

for his broad Americanism, that too seemed limitless — 
when, of a sudden, a certain event of magnitude in 
continental politics gave him pause. What this event 
was, and why it affected his thoughts, his feelings, and 
his future course, will be explained when we come to 
consider his attitude towards the Federal Constitution. 

is, indeed? Even so great a stickler for personal freedom as 
George Mason wished Congress to regulate the food and cloth- 
ing of the people of the United States. 



317 



XIV 

HIS SECOND FAMILY 

Lord Bacon's averment that " the care of posterity is 
most in them that have no posterity " did not apply to 
Patrick Henry. He was the father of seventeen chil- 
dren "^^ — six by his first wife and eleven by his second, 
Dorothea Dandridge, whom he married on the ninth of 
October, 1777. Colonel Nathaniel West Dandridge, 
the father of Dorothea Henry, was a brother of John 
Dandridge, the father of Martha Washington. It may 
be taken for granted, therefore, that long before this the 
reader has made the acquaintance of the Dandridges. 
We ourselves, under the escort of young Jefferson, en- 
tered Colonel Nathaniel's family circle as far back as 
Christmas, 1759, when Henry's passion was for " music, 
dancing, and pleasantry." At that time, Dorothea, her 
mother's namesake, was a girl of four. 

We get a curious glimpse of this Hanover household 
in Colonel Nathaniel's will, " a true copy " of which, 
** by me, John Hughes," is now at hand. It is dated 
October 8, 1782; and one of the minor items runs: 
" I give to my daughter Dorithea Henry one negro slave 
named Mary, now in her possession, as her absolute 
property ; to my daughter Elizabeth, a negro girl named 
Sukey, daughter of Sary, and a sorrel mare called hers, 
as her absolute property ; to my daughter Anna Katha- 
rine, a negro girl named Sally, daughter of Sary, and a 
sorrel mare called hers, as her absolute property ; and 
to my daughter Mary Claibourn Dandridge, a negro 

* " In the case of Henry, the cradle began to rock in his 
house in his eighteenth year, and was rocking at his death 
in his sixty-third." — Hugh Blair Grigsby, 

318 




DOROTHEA SPOTSWOOD HENRY 



(Dorothea, daughter of Patrick Henry, married her cousin, George D. 
Winston. She was eighteen when this portrait was painted by Sharpies, 
the Enghsh artist.) 



HIS SECOND FAMILY 

girl named Sukey, daughter of Doll, and a bay mare 
called hers, as her absolute property." 

This brings up a picture of a troop of dashaway girls, 
each in her own saddle, galloping to the admiration of 
the '' cocked-hat gentry of the Old Dominion." But 
they had a solicitous and discreet dame for a mother — 
Dorothea Spotswood, daughter of Alexander, *' a saga- 
cious statesman, a gallant cavalier, and a brave and 
dashing soldier." He it was who, wearing his scarlet 
velvet, had brought with him to Virginia a concession 
of the right of habeas corpus, hitherto denied — a detail 
that serves to measure for us the stride of liberty be- 
tween Spotswood's day and Henry's. Dorothea's sister 
fCate, famed as a beauty, was the great-grandmother of 
General Robert E. Lee. Dorothea's own portrait shows 
a woman of much comeliness, grace, dignity, and self- 
poise. Having herself dwelt in the *' palace " at 
Williamsburg, she probably saw fitness in the matter 
when her own child entered it as the bride of '' the most 
considerable man in the Commonwealth." Here, in the 
same package with the copy of her husband's will, is 
one of her letters, in which she affectionately mentions 
" my daughter Henry." " My daughter Henry " was 
so much younger than her husband that she retained 
her bloom past the century's end, remarried, and lived 
until the year 1831. 

When Henry left Williamsburg at the end of his third 
term as Governor, his young wife learned what pioneer- 
ing meant, for they migrated by the south-western trail 
to the far piedmont country. With her dower blacks, 
joined to Henry's ; with their stock and appurtenances ; 
with Colonel John Fontaine's family and goods in the 
same caravan — this was doubtless a picturesque moving. 

" P. H.," says Colonel Meredith, " was perhaps the 
best husband in the world. It is said that he never took 
any important step without consulting Dolly, his wife." 

319 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

*' Dolly " bore him seven sons. Of their daughters, the 
eldest was also named Dorothea Spotswood. About 
the time that Sarah Butler, the second daughter, was 
born, Henry wrote from his new home, *' Leather- 
wood " : " I am circumstanced so as to make my attend- 
ance on Congress impossible ; " therefore he declined 
the honor just proffered him. Perhaps if Sarah Butler 
had not come into the world at that time, 1780, he would 
have journeyed northward, would have reidentified him- 
self with continental affairs, and later would have looked 
upon the confederacy with a different eye. 

As it was, Henry dwelt for eight years in the region 
of the Dan. We have seen that he suffered a long ill- 
ness in Hanover, and that he made an advantageous 
sale of his '' Scotchtown " property there. We also 
know that it had been his wish to get over by the moun- 
tains. He liked them ; they delighted his eye. He 
wished to be at the edge of the wilderness. He had a 
great deal of the pioneer and pathfinder in him. If he 
had not doubly " given hostages to fortune," and also 
married the State herself, it is likely that he would have 
passed on through the gaps and become a Sevier or a 
Boone. The impulse to " go west " was natural with 
men of his adventurous spirit and roaming disposition. 
Washington we associate with Mount Vernon ; Mason 
with Gunston Hall ; Lee with Chantilly ; Jefferson with 
Monticello ; and Madison with Montpelier^but there 
is no fixity of hall or home in Henry's case, until we find 
him, in his declining years, at Red Hill. There it was 
that the gypsy spirit left him ; and there he lingered. 

Like Washington, Henry put his spare money into 
land. In 1778 he owned two tracts in Botetourt and ten 
thousand acres in Kentucky. In May of that year he 
bought of Thomas Lomax a three-fifths part of 16,650 
acres on Leatherwood Creek. Jefferson says that 
Henry's " purchase was on long credit, and finally paid 

320 



HIS SECOND FAMILY 

in depreciated paper not worth oak leaves." The facts 
are that Henry, who could have paid in paper money, 
paid £3000 in tobacco notes, worth twice as much as 
the depreciated currency. He raised £3500 by the sale 
of Botetourt land and £1500 by the sale of Kentucky 
land. The sum total required was £5000, and the last 
shilling was paid on time — December i, 1779. For- 
tunately, the records of the transaction have been pre- 
served. They show that Henry was fair and square, 
then as always. It is Jefferson's statement that is '' not 
worth oak leaves." 

Probably sentimental reasons influenced Henry in 
some degree when he moved down into Henry County. 
It had been set off in 1776 from the great border county 
of Pittsylvania, which was itself erected in 1767 — a time 
when the elder William Pitt stood especially high with 
mankind. The part of Henry County nearest the Blue 
Ridge became the county of Patrick in 1791. Thus an 
extraordinary honor befell Henry in that section of the 
State. But so popular a man was sure to be remem- 
bered in the matter of naming things. Ohio, Indiana, 
Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee all have Henry coun- 
ties. A parish was called after him; a street in Rich- 
mond ; and an enormous number of babies. The steam- 
boat " Patrick Henry " was famous in its day. In 
" Emory and Henry College," however, Elizabeth 
Henry, not Patrick, is honored. 

The Leatherwood country was wild and beautiful. 
Within view towards the west were the spurs and knobs 
of the Blue Ridge. The " Pinnacles of the Dan " could 
not but challenge the admiration of the beholder, and 
the way the river leaped down the mountain-side was 
indeed a marvellous sight. All that was romantic in 
respect to rivers, hills, streams, and forests Henry must 
have enjoyed ; but he probably did not like certain ex- 
hibitions of " squatter sovereignty " in those parts. 
21 321 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Some of the squatters were on his own land. It is still 
a wild region, and the present-day pilgrim, in crossing 
the high hills, may chance to spy moonshiner smoke 
curling up from some remote ravine. 

The pilgrim sees a pleasant place when he comes to 
Patrick Henry's old home, on the Danville and Wythe- 
ville turnpike. It is eight miles from the Henry County 
Court-house, being one hundred and ninety-two miles 
south-west of Richmond. '* Situate on the waters of the 
famous Leatherwood Creek," it is surrounded by '' beau- 
tiful hill views, with the creek twisting itself through 
them, and high mountains at a distance." The creek 
passes south into the Dan. For many years Jesse Woot- 
ton, Sheriff of Henry, lived on the five-hundred-acre 
home place, which is now owned by James M. Barker. 
A part of the original Henry dwelling still stands. Tra- 
ditions that will outlast it are heard along the Leather- 
wood, and in the records and archives of the Henry 
County Court one finds numerous references to the great 
Patrick.* 

But if he expected restoration to health in the hilly 
country, with its pure air and pure spring-water, Henry 
was disappointed. Malaria gave him some bad turns. 
If he hoped to improve his fortune there, he was again 
disappointed. In fact, necessity compelled him to leave 
Leatherwood and find a seat in a more thickly popu- 
lated country. Hence we see him once more on the 

* N. London, writing in the Danville Times, of July 4, 1879, 
says : " The sturdy and strong-minded John Reamey, who died 
since the late war, resided but a few miles from the Henry 
mansion, and had seen Mr. Henry frequently. His fine mem- 
ory retained the knowledge of Mr. H. and his manners. He 
was peculiarly entertaining in recounting the sharp use of 
tongues between his mother and the Governor, when she dis- 
appointed him in the making up of his leather breeches, at 
which she was expert, and which was then an art possessed by 
few." 

322 



HIS SECOND FAMILY 

wing, and note the journey of his patriarchal caravan 
from the waters of the Dan to the region of the Appo- 
mattox. 

We should bear in mind that Henry's expenses were 
all the heavier because he sought to so conduct himself 
while Governor as to earn the respect of all sorts of 
citizens. From the fall of 1784 to the fall of 1786, he 
lived at a seat called " Salisbury," thirteen miles west 
of Richmond, near the present Midlothian, in Chester- 
field County. The farm spread out for the space of 
sixteen thousand acres, beautifully wooded, and the 
house was a quaint old structure. Judge Roane says : 
" With respect to his family, they were furnished with 
an excellent coach (at a time when these vehicles were 
not so common as at present [1814]); they lived as 
genteelly and associated with as polished society as those 
of any Governor before or since have done. He enter- 
tained as much company as others, and in as genteel 
a style, and when at the end of two years he resigned 
the office, he had greatly exceeded the salary, and was 
in debt, which was one cause that induced him to resume 
the practice of the law." In October, 1786, we find 
Henry writing to his sister, Mrs. Anne Christian : 

" I shall resign my office next month and retire, my wife 
and myself being heartily tired of the bustle we Hve in here. 
I shall go to Hanover to land I am like to get of Gen. Nelson, 
or if that fails, towards Leatherwood again. My wife has five 
very fine and promising children." 

Fifty years old, in debt, and with a young family to 
rear, Henry did not cease to think of his younger sons 
by his first marriage. He felt that they ought to be 
sent to some such college as Hampden-Sidney. Ac- 
cordingly, he gave up the idea of returning to Hanover, 
and soon settled his family near this college, in Prince 
Edward County, eighty miles south-west of Richmond. 

323 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

He bought of Colonel John Holcombe seventeen hun- 
dred acres of land for £2111, paying in other land and in 
slaves. '* He dwelt on the Appomattox," says Henry 
Howe ; and there was a beautiful avenue of black locust- 
trees in front of the house. Referring to Henry at this 
period, Judge Edmund Winston says : *' He had never 
been in easy circumstances ; and soon after his removal 
to Prince Edward County, conversing with his usual 
frankness with one of his neighbors, he expressed his 
anxiety under the debts which he was not able to pay; 
the reply was to this effect : ' Go back to the bar — your 
tongue will soon pay your debts. If you promise to go, 
I will give you a retaining fee on the spot.' This blunt 
advice determined him to return to the practice of the 
law, which he did in the beginning of 1788; and during 
six years he attended regularly the district courts of 
Prince Edward and New London." 

The man who gave this advice was probably Colonel 
Holcombe. A fee of £5 from him was the first received 
by Henry since 1774. How hard he worked at the bar 
during the next six years will be set forth in subsequent 
pages. Meantime, before telling of his battle against 
the adoption of the Federal Constitution, it is incumbent 
upon us to draw closer to his domestic life during his 
residence in Prince Edward. 

The same desk that Henry used in his office by the 
Appomattox is now at Red Hill ; and it is filled with 
letters, bonds, agreements, plots of land, receipts, and 
private memoranda. The Prince Edward letters and 
documents run from 1787 to 1792. They are dry 
enough in the main, just as every advocate's private 
papers are; but a scrap here and a sentence there flash 
little gleams of light back into the past, and finally we 
get enough of this light to enable us to see " Mrs. Henry 
and her charming family " in their Prince Edward 
home. At " Salisbury '* there had been five " fine and 

324 



HIS SECOND FAMILY 

promising " children ; now there were six, seven — 
Dorothea, up and growing, Sarah, Martha Catharine, 
Patrick, Fayette, Alexander Spotswood, Nathaniel. 
Richard died a baby. Edward Winston and John, of 
Red Hill fame, would complete this remarkable family. 
It so happened that Richard N. Venable, of the Prince 
Edward bar, kept a diary during this period, and in it 
we find references not only to " Patrick Henry's persua- 
sive eloquence," as heard at the Court-house, but to 
Henry's home : 

" Thursday, May lo, 1792. Go with brother Nathaniel to 
Colonel Patrick Henry's, spend the balance of the day and 
take dinner with him. Mr. John Fontaine's widow [Henry's 
eldest daughter] is here with her family, and has been here 
ever since the death of her husband. Mrs. Roane and her 
family also. What a weight of worldly concerns rest upon this 
old man's shoulders ! He supports it with strength and 
fortitude, but nature must sink under the load ere long. His 
head now blossoms for the grave, his body bends to mingle 
with its kindred dust, but his fame shall remain and grow like 
the tall oak of the forest, that spreads its broad head in the 
wind and rejoices in the storm; his body shall be mingled with 
the dust of the plowman and be known no more, but the 
powers of his mind shall be a stream of light to other times." 

Henry dearly loved his children and grandchildren. 
His son " Neddy," who died in 1794, was low in health, 
and was an object of solicitude at this time. His grand- 
son, Edmund Fontaine, had just died, and news came of 
the death of his beloved sister Anne. So when we read 
in the Venable diary : " Patrick Henry sick . . . many 
cases continued for him . . . business much retarded 
by the absence of P. Henry," we are not surprised. 

And now once more the roamer pulled up his tent- 
stakes. He sold his land on the Appomattox and moved 
to the wilder banks of the Staunton, buying his land in 
that quarter of Messrs. Fuqua, Booker, Watkins, and 

325 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

others. At a later date Henry also bought lands in the 
same section of General Henry Lee. Since the war Lee 
had been one of the rising men in Virginia. " Dragoon 
Harry," he was called. His parents were considered 
unintellectual — dull, indeed; whereas the leader of the 
Legion was particularly quick as a thinker. So a 
familiar friend asked him how it happened that with 
such a father and such a mother he himself should be 
what he was. " Two negatives make an affirmative," 
said " Dragoon Harry," solving the puzzle. 



326 



XV. 

CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION. 

" Mr. Speaker," said a member of the British Par- 
liament, " I hear a hon roaring in the lobby. Shall we 
shut the door against him, sir, or shall we let him in to 
see if we are able to turn him out again? " 

Which reminds us that we have now come to the 
stirring story of Patrick Henry and the Federal Con- 
stitution. 

Americans, as a rule, like to think of Henry as one 
of the men who kindled the fires of the Revolution : 
and most people are willing to leave it at that. They 
feel that the logic of Nineteenth Century events proved 
him right in 1765 and in 1775; therefore they do not 
concern themselves as to whether he were right or 
wrong in 1788. They vaguely recall a school-book 
statement to the effect that he fought hard against the 
Federal Constitution, which the Nineteenth Century 
popularized. Or perhaps they remember what Roose- 
velt said in " The Winning of the West " : " Patrick 
Henry himself made one slip when he opposed the 
adoption of the Constitution." 

These lovers of the patriot days are fair-minded 
enough ; but we have also a school of writers who seem 
incapable of taking a just view of Henry's attitude 
towards the new government. They deny, or ignore, 
or distort historic facts. They fetch forth a fragment 
of a fact, without its atmosphere, and exhibit it as a 
scientist would a fossil. They rely upon present senti- 
ment to float their assertions, which go unchallenged 
because he who challenges them must take the unpopu- 
lar side in foolish renewal of a ferocious controversy 

2>27 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

long since ended. But while war settles controversies 
and gives a new direction to human affairs, prior events 
are not to be historically denied. And it is dishonest 
to color proven facts, or distort them, or dress them 
up, in order that they may masquerade as history. We 
must dig below the surface of to-day — dig through 
the stratum of 1861, and even go beneath another, 
before we can lay bare the ground on which Henry 
and Mason stood when they battled against the Con- 
stitution. 

Both of these men were actuated by the purest of 
motives. Henry's stand was all the more admirable 
because he ran the risk not only of losing his hold as 
a leader, but of alienating such friends as Washington. 
" His hostility to the Constitution," says E. H. Cummins, 
*' proceeded entirely from an apprehension that the 
government it proposed would swallow up the State 
authorities, and ultimately the liberty of the people 
would be destroyed or crushed by the overgrown, pon- 
derous consolidation of political power." Howe says : 

" He was opposed to the adoption of the Federal Con- 
stitution because he thought it gave too much power to the 
Federal Government ; and in conversation with the father of 
the late venerable Senator from Prince Edward, he remarked, 
with emphasis : * The President of the United States will 
always come in at the head of a party. You do not now think 
much of the patronage of the President; but the day is 
coming when it will be tremendous, and from this power the 
country may sooner or later fall.' " 

Could Henry have lived another life, and still another 
— could he, in serene contemplation, have watched the 
growth of the West ; the rise of industrialism ; the 
changes wrought by the cotton-gin, by steam, by elec- 
tricity, and by the thousand agencies of modern man — 
he would have modified many of his conclusions of June, 
1788, would have cancelled many more, and would have 

328 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

clung only to those which are as true to-day as they 
were then. Nor should we forget that Henry's hostility 
to the Federal Constitution served a beneficent pur- 
pose. It was necessary to put the new instrument 
through fire in order to test it and temper it. Henry 
certainly put it through fire. Not only that, he forced 
the adoption of the first ten amendments, and so, prac- 
tically, was one of the great makers of the Constitution. 
Incidentally, he enunciated the principle of State 
Rights. But his object with respect to State Rights 
was to point out a future peril, and when, in course of 
time, he was asked to take a personal stand upon the 
doctrine, he refused to do so. 

The question arises : Why did Henry, Mason, and 
their associates oppose the adoption of the Constitution, 
and Washington, Madison, Randolph, and their asso- 
ciates favor it? Then, straightway, other questions 
thrust themselves forward: What was the state of 
Henry's mind towards the general government after 
the war? Did he believe in a weak federation? Did 
he w^ish to see the Union kept up? And, if so, how 
much more power was he willing to grant Congress? 
Was he not less national in spirit than he had been 
when, thirteen years before, he stood up in Carpenters' 
Hall and said : " I am not a Virginian, but an Ameri- 
can. . . . All America is thrown into one mass " ? 
Had he not now, indeed, become one of the most Vir- 
ginian of the Virginians? We have seen under what 
circumstances he quit the army. If he had camped 
with New Englanders and Pennsylvanians, if he had 
campaigned with Washington, perhaps he would have 
looked at affairs with a different eye. Let us bear 
in mind, also, that his opinion of Congress had been 
formed when it was a capable body. He had seen it at 
a time when it was animated with the first breathings 
of liberty. Zeal, determination, the pluck that takes 

329 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

one to the self-sacrificial verge — these were in full 
flower. But later the spirit of Congress lessened. When 
Madison was a member, he saw how weak it was — 
how poor in its powers. Therefore Madison now under- 
stood the necessity of a Congress and an Executive 
with actual authority. He had been down in the Con- 
tinental slough, and had come out of it a Federalist. 
Henry had not been personally in this slough, and he 
was less mindful than Madison of the impotence of 
Congress. 

From a junior in Henry's Privy Council, ten years 
before, Madison had risen rapidly. Ceracchi's medal- 
lion of him gives us his true profile, and it shows a 
more virile face than that which as a rule looks so 
benignly down upon us. John Fiske, indeed, seems 
justified when he says Madison " never crossed the 
Atlantic; yet for the range, depth, and minuteness of 
his knowledge of ancient and modern histories and of 
constitutional law, he has been rivalled by no other 
English-speaking statesman save Edmund Burke." 
Madison and Randolph were young. They were san- 
guine. Age, gout, and bile make men less sanguine ; 
and Henry, as we have seen, was as bilious as Mason 
was gouty. Old men grow fond of the banners they 
have borne in battle, and they look askance at innova- 
tions. Henry and Mason had put so much of them- 
selves into the existing State government that they were 
naturally partial to it. They had erected a republican 
sovereignty and hedged it about with civil safeguards; 
and they were satisfied with their work. 

But were they satisfied with the general government 
— a loose league of States, incapable of vigorous action ? 
Were they more patriotic with respect to Commonwealth 
than to country? We are bound to ask these questions, 
and determine for ourselves whether Henry had lost 
something of his high outlook, his Continental per- 

330 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

spective — in a word, his ardent Americanism of 1775 
as contradistinguished from his intensified Virginianism 
of 1788. Of course, we should bear in mind that men 
grow perfervid in the first flush of war, and that when 
peace comes, they lapse somewhat in enthusiasm. It 
was so in Henry's case. He believed that his best work 
could be done just where he was doing it. " The idea 
that the States were to be the centres of political life 
was axiomatic in the South," says Moncure D. Conway. 
Henry Adams urges that Union there " was a question 
of expediency, not of obligation " ; and he adds : '' This 
was the conviction of the true Virginia school, and of 
Jefferson's opponents as well as of his supporters ; of 
Patrick Henry, as well as of John Taylor of Caroline and 
John Randolph of Roanoke." But this latter generali- 
zation glitters somewhat, as the moonshine glittered on 
Randolph's celebrated mackerel. Beyond all question, 
expediency was much considered in Virginia, as in every 
other State ; but there was also a feeling that those 
who had gone through the war together should have 
a common flag. We do not think that Henry ever 
forgot the full title of " The Articles of Confederation 
and Perpetual Union between the States." Nor until 
August, 1786, did he nurse in his breast any of that 
" jealousy of Federal power " which Rives assures us 
began to prevail in 1783. When Henry took alarm in 
the matter, it was all of a sudden, and it was on account 
of a proceeding which he deemed especially ominous. 
Let us pass speedily and in order from event to event, 
so that we may understand the change that came over 
him. In 1781 he favored an act empowering Congress 
to obtain a revenue by levying a duty on imports. He 
was at home, sick, during the fall session of 1782 ; and 
Richard Henry Lee successfully led a movement for the 
repeal of the act. But in the spring of 1783 another 
measure, duly modified so as to help Congress to the 

331 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

money without compromising the State, was advocated 
by Henry. It would have passed, no doubt, but for a 
paper written by Hamilton, which alarmed many mem- 
bers. Again Henry attempted to assist the general 
government in raising the revenue, and this time, June, 
1783, succeeded. His chief reason for returning to 
the Legislature in 1784 was that he might " strengthen 
the Federal arm." On May 14th of that year, William 
Short wrote to Jefiferson : 

" You will be pleased when I inform you of a conversation 
last evening between Mr. Henry, Mr. Madison, and Mr. 
[Joseph] Jones. I was left in the coffee-house with these 
three. Mr. Henry told them he wished much to have a 
conference on a subject of importance. The event of it was 
that Mr. Jones and Mr. Madison should sketch out some 
plan for giving greater power to the Federal Government, 
and that Mr. Henry should support it on the floor. It was 
thought a bold example set by Virginia would have influence on 
the other States. Mr. Henry declared that it was the only in- 
ducement he had for coming to the present Assembly. He 
saw ruin inevitable unless something was done to give Congress 
a compulsory process on delinquent States." 

Next day Madison wrote to Jefiferson : " Mr. Henry 
arrived yesterday, and from a short conversation I find 
him strenuous for invigorating the Federal Govern- 
ment, though without any precise plan." The plan was 
not long in forming. A series of resolutions so point- 
edly in support of Congress as to cause them to be 
called " coercive " were adopted in Committee of the 
Whole ; and Henry stood out as the champion of the 
general government. This act, in line with Henry's 
whole conduct up to that moment, and up to August, 
1786, was not forgotten by those who sought to over- 
throw him in the course of the Constitutional debates. 
" I am sure that the gentleman recognizes his child," 
said George Nicholas, with some sarcasm, meaning 
the child Coercion. Undoubtedly Henry must have 

3Z2 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

disapproved of much that was going on in Congress. 
Months before the coercive plan, Pierce Butler wrote 
from Philadelphia to Judge Iredell, of North Carolina: 

" So greatly altered is this once august body, that as little 
as possible is intrusted to them. And yet, among them are 
many individuals of the strictest honor and great worth; 
but, as a body, there is little dependence to be placed on them. 
The Northern interest is all prevalent; their members are 
firmly united, and carry many measures disadvantageous to 
the Southern interest. They are laboring hard to get Vermont 
established as an independent State, which will give them 
another vote, by which the balance will be quite destroyed." 

But if Henry knew of this beginning of sectional 
friction, it does not seem to have affected him. What 
was it, then, that caused him all at once to turn about 
in alarm, look, bristle, and say, in substance, " I am 
persuaded from what I see that the General Govern- 
ment is strong enough as it stands " ? Who was it, and 
what ? 

Again may we pass speedily and in order from event 
to event. By the Treaty of Paris, the Mississippi River 
was left open to American shipping. New England 
now proposed that it should be shut for twenty-five or 
thirty years ; otherwise she would secede. This it was 
that struck Henry aback. and made him an Anti-Feder- 
alist. Moses Coit Tyler declares that the effect upon 
him was " powerful enough to reverse entirely the 
habitual direction of his political thought and conduct." 
Moncure D. Conway, speaking of the proposed occlusion 
of the Mississippi, says : " From that time Patrick 
Henry, who ruled the heart of his State, became jealous 
of the Federal power; and he watched the proceedings 
at Annapolis for a commercial union with suspicion." 

The whole story of the project was told in a letter 
received by Henry from his friend James Monroe, 
afterwards President, at that time a Virginia delegate 

333 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

in Congress. They wrote long letters in those days, 
and this one by Monroe, dated New York, August 12, 
1786, contained more than two thousand words. Monroe 
began by lamenting the lack of a cipher in which to 
convey his secret and critical news. Don Diego Guar- 
doqui, the envoy of Spain, who had arrived in America 
in July, 1785, was negotiating a treaty with John Jay. 
Guardoqui's object was to win the Mississippi Valley 
for Spain, and he was seeking to trade of¥ Southern 
interests for Northern support in Congress. He tempted 
the Northern men with open Spanish ports, and even 
promised to buy masts and ship-timber for the royal 
navy from the New Englanders. The Articles of Con- 
federation required the sanction of nine States in a 
treaty ; but it was proposed to push the Jay-Guardoqui 
treaty through with seven. " This is one of the most 
extraordinary transactions I have ever known," wrote 
Monroe. One great object was " to break up the set- 
tlements on the Western waters," to " keep the States 
southward as they now are," and " throw the weight of 
population eastward, and keep it there." Committees 
of Eastern men had been discussing "the subject of 
a dismemberment of the States east of the Hudson from 
the Union, and the erection of them into a separate 
government." Another scheme for dismemberment 
divided the two confederacies at the Potomac. 

If this be unpleasant reading for us, how much more 
disillusionizing and saddening and shocking it must 
have been for Patrick Henry ! He was peculiarly inter- 
ested in the West and South-west. There had always 
been a magnet in that part of the country, drawing him 
thither in his dreams. He loved it. His dear Anne 
was grieving beyond the mountains at that moment 
for her lost husband.* Kentucky was not Kentucky to 

* Colonel William Christian, husband of Anne Henry, was 

334 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

him, but as much a part of Virginia as the ground upon 
which he walked. As Governor, he was in duty bound 
to protect all that vast territory, a third larger than 
Great Britain and Ireland; and it would be a present 
crime against the State, as well as a crime against the 
future population in the Mississippi Valley, if the snags 
and mud of Jay and Guardoqui should be permitted 
to choke the noble river, up which would come creeping 
innumerable alligators, and with them Spanish civili- 
zation. No wonder the imaginative old patriot was 
sobered and soured. As William Wirt Henry expresses 
it : " That the Northern States, for which Virginia had 
done so much, should, from a purely selfish policy, 
attempt to barter away the navigation of the Mississippi, 
so valuable to her, at the risk of losing the all-import- 
ant Western country, was a shock to him indeed." A 
week after the Virginia House of Delegates had adopted 
a series of resolutions against the Jay-Guardoqui project, 
Madison wrote to Washington from Richmond:, 

** I am entirely convinced, from what I observe here," that 
unless the project of Congress for ceding to Spain the Mis- 
sissippi for twenty-five years can be reversed, the hopes ot 
carrying this State into a proper Federal system will be 
demolished. Many of our most Federal leading men are 
extremely soured by what has already passed. Mr. Henry, 
who has been hitherto the champion of the Federal cause, 
has become a cold advocate, and in the event of an actual 
sacrifice of the Mississippi by Congress will unquestionably go 
over to the other side." 

A little later, John Marshall wrote to Arthur Lee : 

" Mr. Henry, whose opinions have their usual influence, 
has been heard to say that he would rather part with the 
confederation than relinquish the navigation of the Missis- 
sippi." 

"killed in action by the Indians, April 9, 1786, aged 43. The 
stout hero," says Wallace, " was laid to rest at his seat called 
* Oxmoor,' a few miles from Louisville, on the Beargrass." 

335 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Madison and Edmund Randolph, who succeeded 
Henry as Governor, were adroit and tireless workers 
in behalf of the establishment of a new order of things. 
What a pity it is that a shadow fell upon the otherwise 
splendid career of Edmund Randolph ! In a time of 
rancorous politics, his enemies accused him of pecula- 
tion, and his fame suffered a long eclipse. Moncure D. 
Conway is sure of his innocence ; and we should rejoice 
to believe in it. But whether we regard him as guiltless 
or as a lesser Lord Bacon, we are obliged to recognize 
the magnitude of his services at this critical period 
in American affairs. Madison says that the first man 
to suggest in print that a Constitutional Convention 
be held was Pelatiah Webster, " an able but not con- 
spicuous citizen," who published a pamphlet on the 
subject in May, 1781. In a private letter to James 
Duane, Alexander Hamilton had made a similar sugges- 
tion as early as September 3, 1780. 

As to the actual origin of the Convention : Certain 
Maryland and Virginia Commissioners, seeking to form 
a navigation compact, found that they lacked power in 
essential matters ; hence, in sequence, the Annapolis 
conference between delegates from five States ; hence, in 
further sequence, the election of deputies by the Legis- 
latures of twelve States, to meet at Philadelphia in the 
spring of 1787. The winter that intervened was an 
anxious and busy time for such ardent Federalists as 
Madison and Randolph. In a flattering and persuasive 
letter, Randolph notified Henry of his appointment as 
one of the seven Virginia deputies, and reminded him 
that " the neglect of the present moment might ter- 
minate in the destruction of Confederate America." 
But Henry replied : " It is with much concern that I 
feel myself constrained to decline acting under this 
appointment." He gave no reason. Probably Ran- 
dolph again urged him to accept ; for, on March i , the 

33<5 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

Governor wrote to Madison that Congress must have 
done with all talk of shutting up the Mississippi, add- 
ing : " It will not be sufficient to negative it merely ; 
but a negative with some emphasis can alone secure 
Mr. Henry to the objects of the Convention at Philadel- 
phia. I have essayed every means to prevail on him 
to go thither. . But he is peremptory in refusing, as 
distressed in his private circumstances." Madison 
wrote to Washington : " I hear from Richmond, with 
much concern, that Mr. Henry has positively declined 
his mission to Philadelphia. Besides the loss of his 
services on that theatre, there is danger, I fear, that 
this step has proceeded from a wish to leave his conduct 
unfettered on another theatre, where the result of the 
Convention will receive its destiny from his omnipo- 
tence." To Jefferson, then in France, Madison wrote 
that though the Mississippi was not to be sacrificed, 
" the intention and the attempt " had done harm. " Mr. 
Henry's disgust," he said, " exceeds all measure, and I 
am not singular in ascribing his refusal to attend the 
Convention to the policy of keeping himself free to 
combat or espouse the result of it, according to the 
result of the Mississippi business, among other cir- 
cumstances." 

Thus it is clear that Henry was in no state of mind 
to surrender sovereign attributes of any sort for the 
sake of strengthening a general government which had 
just demonstrated that it might become a curse instead 
of a blessing. It may be said that he made too much of 
the Mississippi matter ; it may be urged with pertinency 
that the languishing trade of Northern ports excused, 
or at least explained, the readiness of the people to 
fall in with the design of the Spanish intriguer ; it may 
be contended that Henry was precipitate, that he pre- 
judged the Constitution before it was born, and that 
he should have gone to Philadelphia, where he could 
22 ZZ7 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

have used the thunder-claps of his eloquence to clear 
the air and frighten the pygmy Guardoquis back to 
Spain. It would have been well, indeed, if Henry had 
made his fight on the floor of the Convention hall. 
In the nature of things, he belonged there. But he 
elected to remain at home ; and it followed that he would 
become the catechist of the makers of the Constitution — 
its chief critic and its most savage assailant. That he 
finally became its firm and faithful friend is aside from 
the present point. 

Washington at first declined to go to the Convention, 
but his reason for declining was altogether different 
from Henry's. With Henry, liberty was an emotion, 
a passion; he was republican to the core, and when 
stirred was intensely imaginative. He and Mason still 
distrusted the old aristocrats. Theodore Parker says 
that John Adams " doubted the nation's genius " ; and 
it would seem at times that Henry and Mason were less 
sure of the people than they should have been. At a 
later period than the one we are now considering, Wash- 
ington was almost in despair; but in the winter of 1787 
he was disturbed more by the apprehension that the 
country might break up than by fears of aristocrats or 
democrats or Guardoquis. Foreign nations, he said, 
" must see and feel that the Union, or the States indi- 
vidually, are sovereign, as best suits their purposes ; in 
a word, that we are a nation to-day, and thirteen 
to-morrow. Who will treat with us on such terms ? " 
His experiences as Commander-in-Chief had federalized 
him, and he constantly encouraged Madison, Randolph, 
Hamilton, and others in their efforts to reform the 
government. But he had declined an invitation to a 
spring meeting of the Cincinnati in Philadelphia, and 
was loath to offend his old comrades by journeying 
thither on another errand. Therefore, being consid- 
erate and punctilious, he refused to go to the Convention 

338 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

until the difficulty was removed. This accomplished, he 
took the chair in Congress Hall on the 25th of May, 
and from that time became identified with the new 
instrument, and it with him. But for the work he did 
upon the Constitution, he might not have become so 
attached to it. But for the enormous prestige he gave 
it, there is doubt whether it could have lived. Henry's 
substitute in the Convention was Dr. James McClurg, 
of Richmond. McClurg was a patriot, a *' character," 
and a true man. Mordecai declares that he was *' the 
most skilful and accomplished medical officer " in the 
Revolution. He was devoted to Henry, and Henry to 
him. Madison, Randolph, and Marshall were the Vir- 
ginia Federalists, while Colonel William Grayson, 
Monroe, and Mason were staunch State Sovereignty 
men. But Mason was zealous for better government. 
He declared that he would " bury his bones in Phila- 
delphia sooner than expose his country to a dissolution 
of the Convention without anything being done." 
Edmund Randolph introduced fifteen resolutions setting 
forth the " Virginia plan." Nineteen resolutions based 
on this plan were reported from the Committee of the 
Whole on the T3th of June. It was " a system of gov- 
ernment in outline." Two days later, the " New Jersey 
plan," proposing amendments to the existing articles, 
was introduced. Four days after that, the Committee 
reported in favor of the " Virginia plan." Then came 
much hard work and much in the way of heart-burn- 
ings. Finally the Constitution was agreed to. It was 
signed on the 17th of September, and among the sixteen 
deputies who refused to sign it were Mason, Randolph, 
and Gerry. Mason said that he would " sooner chop 
ofif his right hand than put it to the Constitution as it 
then stood." Franklin said : " Several parts of this 
Constitution I do not at present approve, but I am not 
sure I shall never approve them. It astonishes me to 

339 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

find this system approaching so near to perfection. I 
assent to this Constitution because I expect no better, 
and because I am not sure it is not the best. The 
opinions I have had of its errors I sacrifice to the pubUc 
good." 

Would Henry have said the same if he had been 
present? Hardly. He would have stood with Mason. 
Yet Washington still hoped that Henry might be in- 
duced to countenance the new government. He sent 
Henry a copy of the Constitution and a placatory letter. 
He was at pains to emphasize the compliment by for- 
warding it "' in the first moment after my return " to 
Mount Vernon. In his reply Henry said : " I have to 
lament that I cannot bring my mind to accord with the 
proposed Constitution. The concern I feel on this 
account is greater than I can express." His '' regard " 
for Washington and his '' attachment " to him would 
be " unalterable," but . 

There was much in the " but." Henry was now in the 
Legislature as a member from Prince Edward, and led 
the House. At the autumn session he seemed to be 
training himself for a great conflict and skirmishing 
for position. One of his fiercest and most prolonged 
debates was over a bill repealing acts in conflict with 
the treaty of peace. He opposed it, and won, on the 
plea that repeal should be contingent upon Great 
Britain's compliance in the premises. Mason worked 
with Henry on the grander theme then agitating the 
whole country, and when the Legislature adjourned for' 
the session, it was understood that the battle in Virginia 
would open in March, 1788, when the people would 
elect delegates to ratify or reject the Federal Consti- 
tution. 

Henry had a disagreeable experience in the prelimi- 
naries. Before a great concourse of Prince Edward 
people, during court-week in February, he offered him- 

340 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

self as a candidate for the Convention, made a powerful 
speech, and, at its conclusion, lingered awhile in the 
throng, expecting a Federalist reply from John Blair 
Smith, the distinguished clergyman and orator, then 
at the head of Hampden-Sidney College. But Presi- 
dent Smith was kept away by the death of a friend. 
Later, when Henry, as a College trustee, was present 
at a debate, his own speech, caught in short-hand, was 
given by one student and Smith's reply by another. 
The incident caused ill feeling, and led eventually to 
President Smith's resignation.* This, however, was 
but one of numerous happenings of a bitter spring. 
Henry remarked that in the smaller, eastern counties 
aristocratic Federal delegates were being chosen, and 
in the larger, western counties Anti-Federal delegates. 
He complained of Federal tricks. He noted that by 
May 23 eight States had adopted the Constitution, and 
his eagerness to begin his forensic battle added to the 
intensity of his feeling. As he was about to leave 
Prince Edward Court-house for Richmond, a veteran 
fox-hunter tapped him on the shoulder, saying : '* Old 
fellow, stick to the people ! If you take the back track, 
we are gone." 

Finally the day came. It was Monday, the 26. of 
June, and the Capitol — the Old Capitol — was like a 
hive. So great was the crowd, indeed, that on the fol- 
lowing day the Convention assembled in a larger 
audience hall — that of the New Academy on Shockoe 
Hill, Monumental Church, a memorial to seventy-two 

* An anecdote by Grigsby implies that Henry and Smith 
actually met in debate. Dr. Smith is said to have pressed the 
question upon Henry why he had not taken his seat in the 
Convention and lent his aid in making a good Constitution, 
instead of staying at home and abusing the work of his patriotic 
compeers. Henry, with that magical power of acting in which 
he excelled all his contemporaries, and which before a popular 
assembly was irresistible, replied : " I smell a rat ! " 

341 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

persons, including the Governor of the State, who per- 
ished in a theatre fire at Christmas, 1811, marks the site 
of the building. Mordecai, in his " Richmond in By- 
gone Days," says that Chevalier Quesnay erected the 
structure used by the Convention, his purpose being 
to found an Academy of the Fine Arts. No pictures 
that could have been hung upon its walls, even though 
painted by a West or a Trumbull, would have equalled 
the actual scene, or series of scenes, now framed by 
those walls from day to day. We may well think of the 
delegates as all alive, and with a variety of mud-spatters 
on their stockings — red, yellow, black splashes — and 
a variety of dust in their wigs ; for there were one 
hundred and seventy of them, and they had come on 
wheels or on horseback along many roads, from every 
part of Virginia.* Pendleton presided ; but when the 

* Hugh Blair Grigsby's " History of the Virginia Federal 
Convention of 1788," edited by R. A. Brock, is to be found in 
the Virginia Historical Collections, Vols. IX and X. Grigsby 
paints a picture of the arrival at Richmond of Henry and 
Pendleton : " Though not personal enemies, they rarely 
thought alike on the greatest questions of that age, and they 
came aptly enough by different roads. One was seen advanc- 
ing from the south side of the James, driving a pla^'- and top- 
less stick gig. He was tall, and seemed capable of enduring 
fatigue, but was bending forward as if worn with travel. His 
dress was the product of his own loom, and was covered with 
dust. He was to be the master-spirit of the Convention. The 
other approached from the north side of the river in an elegant 
vehicle, then known as a phaeton. . . . They met on the steps 
of the Swan and exchanged salutations. Public expectation 
was at its height when it was known that Patrick Henry and 
Edmund Pendleton, who for a quarter of a century had been at 
the head of the two great parties of that day, were about to 
engage in another fierce conflict in the councils of their country." 
We have another picture of Henry and Mason walking arm in 
arm from the Swan to the Convention hall — Mason " dressed in 
a full suit of black," and remarkable for the " urbanity and 
dignity " of his bearing. 

343 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

Convention sat in Committee of the Whole, as it usually 
did, he gave Chancellor Wythe the gavel and took the 
floor, that he might chasten the logic and confute the 
arguments of his old-time enemy. David Robertson, 
the Petersburg stenographer, was in the hall, and, with 
the help of another short-hand writer, hoped to take 
down everything that was said ; but he was given " an 
ineligible seat." Doubtless he could hear the noisy 
robins outside better than he could some of the speak- 
ers. He admits that he could not follow Henry in his 
tremendous flights. Breaks in his copy indicate as 
much ; and in our fancy we visualize the good stenogra- 
pher, elbows on table, quill in hand, listening with all 
his might — not for the edification of the curious in 
times to come, but because he was under a spell, a bit 
fascinated, perhaps, just as others were at that moment. 
A lack of coherence is noted in some of the reported 
speeches ; the logic limps ; evidently it was no easy 
task to put upon paper a literal record of that pro- 
digious disputation. 

Every one of consequence understood the issue. It 
was strict Federalism, with new and nationalistic attri- 
butes, against a loose union of local governments. 
Every one of clear comprehension understood the bind- 
ing effect of the final yea and nay. Madison was blunt, 
but not too blunt, when he declared : " The Constitu- 
tion requires an adoption in toto and forever." Many 
of the members likewise appreciated the dramatic aspects 
of this grand game in fundamental politics. The New 
York Convention was to meet on the 17th and the New 
Hampshire Convention on the i8th, and the news of 
the three was to be borne to and fro by men riding 
express. It was a device set up by Hamilton and Mad- 
ison, with the idea that they might thus be able to utilize 
the inspiriting effect of a victory in one State to win 
votes in another. So do generals in a critical campaign 

343 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

send off their couriers breakneck and sound their fan- 
fares to animate their men. Henry's party had no such 
arrangement ; yet the Anti-Constitutionahsts were active 
indoors and out. Mason was chairman of the Virginia 
branch of the " Federal RepubHcans," a society organ- 
ized in New York, under the guidance of General John 
Lamb, with whom Henry was in correspondence. Its 
purpose was to bring the amendments to be proposed 
in the several States into close order and uniformity, 
so that they might constitute a rear line of intrench- 
ments In the event of defeat at the outstart of battle. 

Though not present in person, Washington was the 
leader of the Federalists in the Richmond struggle. 
His spirit was there. His line of battle contained 
Madison, Randolph, Marshall, Pendleton, Wythe, 
Wilson Nicholas, George Nicholas, Corbin, Innes, and 
" Dragoon Harry " Lee. Henry's was held very largely 
by himself, but a great man stood with him whenever 
Mason rose to speak, and they counted among their 
supporters Monroe, Tyler, Dawson, Grayson, Harrison, 
and other orators and logicians of high repute. 

It was agreed to take up the Constitution clause by 
clause; but in a little while it became apparent that a 
wiser way was to place no check upon the speakers, 
who were given the widest latitude. Wilson Nicholas 
opened the debate ; Henry followed him ; then came 
Randolph ; then Mason ; then Madison. They all slept 
on the theme, and next morning Pendleton and Lee 
led off, after which Henry again took the floor. And 
so It went for twenty-three days, Henry speaking on 
eighteen. "On each of several days," says Tyler, "he 
made three speeches ; on one day, he made five speeches ; 
on another day, eight. In one speech alone he was on 
his legs for seven hours." In Jonathan Elliot's five- 
volume collection of ratification debates, the third vol- 
ume, of six hundred and sixty-three pages. Is devoted 

344 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

to those in Virginia, and Henry's speeches take up 
nearly one-fourth of the book. In one instance a speech 
is spread out upon forty pages. 

Henry declared himself a Unionist. " I mean not 
to breathe the spirit nor utter the language of secession," 
said he. " Separate confederacies will ruin us. . . . 
Sir, the dissolution of the Union is most abhorrent to 
my mind. The first thing I have at heart is American 
liberty ; the second thing is American union." He set 
great store by what had been gained. " The voice of 
tradition, I trust, will inform posterity of our struggles 
for freedom." Might not the fruits of the struggle 
be lost? He was suspicious — he admitted his suspicion. 
" But, sir, suspicion is a virtue as long as its object 
is the preservation of the public good." Others like- 
wise were filled with grave mistrust, with foreboding. 
" I speak as one poor individual — but when I speak, 
I speak the language of thousands. ... I see great 
jeopardy in this new government; I see none from our 
present one. The Confederation — this same despised 
government — merits, in my opinion, the highest enco- 
mium ; it carried us through a long and dangerous war ; 
it rendered us victorious in that bloody conflict with a 
powerful nation ; it has secured us territory greater 
than any European monarch possesses : and shall a 
government which has been thus strong and vigorous 
be accused of imbecility and abandoned for want of 
energy ? " But granted that some change was neces- 
sary. " The Federal Convention ought to have amended 
the old system — for this purpose they were solely dele- 
gated." Given an inch, they had taken an ell. He 
demanded the cause of their conduct. " Even from 
that illustrious man who saved us by his valor, I would 
have a reason for his conduct — that liberty which he 
has given us by his valor tells me to ask this reason. 
. . . The distinction between a National Govern- 

345 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

ment and a Confederacy is not sufficiently discerned. 
Had the delegates who were sent to Philadelphia a 
power to propose a Consolidated Government instead 
of a Confederacy? . . . Have they said 'We, the 
States ' ? Have they made a proposal of compact 
between the States? If they had, this would be a Con- 
federation : it is otherwise most clearly a Consolidated 
Government. The question, sir, turns on that poor 
little thing, ' We, the People' instead of the States, 
' of America.' ... A number of characters, of the 
greatest eminence in this country, object to this gov- 
ernment for its consolidating tendency. This is not 
imaginary. It is a formidable reality. . . . This 
government will operate like an ambuscade. It will 
destroy the State governments, and swallow the liber- 
ties of the people. ... If gentlemen are willing 
to run the hazard, let them run it ; but I shall exculpate 
myself by my opposition and monitory warnings within 
these walls. . . . Here is a revolution as radical as 
that which separated us from Great Britain. It is as 
radical if, in this transition, our rights and privileges 
are endangered and the sovereignty of the States shall 
be relinquished. The rights of conscience, trial by 
jury, liberty of the press, all your immunities and 
franchises, all pretensions to human rights and privi- 
leges, are rendered insecure, if not lost, by this change, 
so loudly talked of by some, so inconsiderately by others. 
. . . You ought to be extremely cautious, watchful, 
jealous of your liberty; instead of securing your rights, 
you may lose them forever. If a wrong step be now 
made, the Republic may be lost forever." Let the new 
plan be examined minutely. Here is delegated " a 
power of direct taxation, unbounded and unlimited. 
. . . Your militia is given up to Congress. . . . 
My great objection to this government is that it does 
not leave us the means of defending our rights, or of 

346 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

waging war against tyrants. . . . Will the op- 
pressor let go the oppressed? Was there ever an 
instance ? Can the annals of mankind exhibit one single 
example ? " We may amend the Constitution, but one- 
tenth can defeat all amendment. " We drew the spirit 
of liberty from our British ancestors ; by that spirit 
we have triumphed over every difficulty. But now, 
sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and 
chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country 
into a powerful and mighty empire. ... If your 
American chief be a man of ambition and abilities, how 
easy it is for him to render himself absolute ! . . . 
What will then become of you and your rights? Will 
not absolute despotism ensue ? " And the Senators of 
this splendid government, would they not be corrupted 
— would they not sell themselves to those who had 
cause to buy them? But there will be luminous 
characters to conduct the Federal Government. '' It 
will not avail unless this luminous breed be propagated 
from generation to generation ; and even then, if the 
number of vicious characters preponderate, you are 
undone. . . . You will sip sorrow " if you give 
away your rights. '' Congress, by the power of taxation 
and by their control over the militia, have the sword in 
one hand and the purse in the other. Shall we be safe 
without either? When did freedom exist when the 
sword and purse were given up from the people? 
Unless a miracle in human affairs interposed, no nation 
ever retained its liberty after the loss of the sword 
and purse." There must be a Bill of Rights. Why 
not? They should be written down and solemnly sub- 
scribed to. Why leave anything to chance? Law in 
Virginia was no law at all if it was contrary to their 
own Bill of Rights. '' If you give up these powers 
without a Bill of Rights, you will exhibit the most 
absurd thing to mankind the world ever saw, a gov- 

347 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

ernment that has abandoned all its powers — the power 
of a direct taxation, the sword and the purse. You 
have disposed of them to Congress without a Bill of 
Rights — without check, limitation, or control. . . . 
You have a Bill of Rights to defend you against the 
State government, which is bereft of all power ; and 
yet you have none against Congress, though in full 
and exclusive possession of all power. ... If you 
will in the language of freemen stipulate that there 
are rights which no man under heaven can take from 
you, you shall have me going along with you — not 
otherwise." But the Constitution as it stands " has an 
awful squinting; it squints towards monarchy. And 
does not this raise indignation in the breast of every 
true American? Your President may easily become 
King. . . . No, sir, I have not said the one hun- 
dred thousandth part of what I have on my mind. 
. . . It is impiously irritating the avenging hand 
of heaven when a people who are in the full enjoyment 
of freedom launch out into the wide ocean of human 
affairs, and desert those maxims which alone can pre- 
serve liberty." 

Such was the spirit and such the burden of Henry's 
tremendous outpouring. But, in thus compressing 
some tens of thousands of words into a few hundred, 
we have been unable, of course, to follow his full and 
orderly line of thought — sustained, as it was, hour after 
hour, day after day. Nor have we successfully indi- 
cated the multitude of analogies and facts used by him 
to exemplify or clinch his arguments. He frequently 
referred to the attempt to close the Mississippi River — 
a burning matter with him. He discussed the govern- 
ments of Europe, which he said was " enslaved by the 
hands of its own people," and he eulogized the British 
government. He spoke upon the danger of secrecy 
in Congress, and enlarged upon elections, the judi- 

348 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

ciary, paper money, and British debts. There should 
be checks on the treaty-making. Checks and balances 
should be provided wherever there was likelihood that 
the liberties of the people would be infringed. 

As with Mason, Henry's mind constantly went back 
to the period of struggle prior to the Revolution. Many 
wise words were spoken during the debates, and not 
a few of them by Mason. Because he had made a life 
study of the subject, it was easy for him to clothe an 
elusive and abstruse governmental truth in simple words 
that made it plain and incontrovertible ; but it was 
hard for him, just as it was for Henry, to get away 
from the thoughts that had dominated him in more 
heroic days. 

Pendleton, who held that the people, not the States, 
were *' the fountain of power," assured them that " there 
was no quarrel between government and hberty." He 
tried to make them forget the pre-Revolutionary fight, 
and imagine that the Constitution before them " had 
dropped from one of the planets." If so, it would be 
looked at and admired. The Confederation was of 
slight account. It was the American spirit that had won 
the Revolution. '' From Congress to the drunken car- 
penter," the people had cried, " United we stand " ; and 
that was why victory had come. 

Pendleton was a close reasoner, but Madison was 
the master-spirit among the Federalists. Like Marshall, 
he was a temperate disputant, with an habitual appeal 
to sound sense ; but, aside from his skill in dialectics, 
he was armed at all points because of his specialization 
along present lines, and also because of his abiding faith 
in the instrument before them. 

We have said that wise words were spoken. " What 
are the favorite maxims of democracy?" asked Mar- 
shall ; and he answered : " A strict observance of public 
faith and a steady adherence to virtue. These, sir, are 

349 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

the principles of a good government. No mischief, no 
misfortune, ought to deter us from a strict observance 
of justice and the public faith." But immediately, 
and with lack of wisdom, Marshall attacked Henry on 
the score of a happening when the Revolution was in 
progress. Randolph joined in the attack ; and, strange 
to say, Henry's defence of himself was less effective 
than a simple recital of the facts would have been. 
The implication was that Henry and the Legislature 
were to blame for attainting a Tory outlaw of the Great 
Dismal, one Josiah Philips. This man was a war-time 
bandit, at the head of a gang of desperadoes who eluded 
the militia by hiding in the swamp in daylight, after 
striking defenceless points at night. Henry wrote to 
the Speaker of the House about him, and the Assembly, 
on its own initiative, passed a bill of attainder, notify- 
ing the bandits that if they failed to surrender within a 
month, they stood attainted of treason and should suffer 
death. Philips was caught, tried for highway robbery 
— not treason — and hanged. But in the Convention 
Henry failed to recall the actual facts ; and Randolph, 
who had tried the man, also made the strange blunder 
of scoring Henry for an act of injustice in putting a 
man to death under a bill of attainder. The Homers, 
it seems, were all nodding. 

But Henry was not nodding when George Nicholas 
intimated that certain land transactions in which various 
gentlemen had engaged were not as they should have 
been. It was probably intended as a grazing shot. " I 
mean what I say, sir ! " said Nicholas, angrily, when 
called to account ; but Henry, who had in his time bought 
a great deal of land, and who might therefore be mis- 
judged in this connection by delegates from distant 
parts, forced Nicholas to apologize. " I hold what I 
hold in right, and in a just manner," said Henry; and 
the Convention stood convinced. 

350 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

There were other personaHties. The contention at 
times was sharp. No point was lost. BeHeving as he 
did that there was '* poison under the wings of the 
Constitution," Henry fought with every legitimate 
weapon. 

Now, it so happened that Randolph, in particular, 
repeatedly invited attack. He had laid himself open to 
it by his shifting course ; for, though he had refused to 
sign the paper at Philadelphia, he now acted as if he 
regarded himself as its chief champion and wished others 
to so regard him. This was too much for Henry, who, 
with cutting sarcasm, naming no names, called attention 
to the inconsistency. Randolph was " touched to the 
quick," and cried out : '' I find myself attacked in the 
most illiberal manner by the honorable gentleman. I 
disdain his aspersions and insinuations. His asperity 
is warranted by no principle of parliamentary decency, 
nor compatible with the least shadow of friendship; 
and if our friendship must fall, let it fall like Lucifer, 
never to rise again ! " There was so much excitement 
that the reporter used his eyes and ears, but forgot to 
use the hand in which he held his quill. He noted, 
however, that Randolph threatened to disclose certain 
facts that would make " some men's hair stand on end." 
Henry demanded immediate disclosure on the Conven- 
tion floor ; but Randolph's threat was evidently idle, 
probably originating in a baseless tavern tale ; and he 
refused to reveal what it was with which he proposed to 
bring about this horripilation. But a duel was looked 
for. Roane says that Henry called on Randolph, '* with 
old Will Cabell as his friend," adding : " I heard the 
latter say that Mr. Henry acted with great firmness and 
propriety. He let Mr. Randolph down, however, pretty 
easily, owing to the extreme benignity of his disposi- 
tion." * 



* In a letter to Judge Carr, Wirt speaks of " some ugly traits 

351 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

This and other incidents, one of which shows us 
Henry as a soHcitous father, even when absorbed in 
his great pubHc work, serve to bring us close to the 
man. WilHam Wirt Henry, teUing of the impressive 
speech of the 5th of June, says : 

" In the midst of his argument he recognized the face of 
his son, whom he had left to protect his family in his absence, 
and he knew that some important domestic event had brought 
him to Richmond. He hesitated a moment, stooped down, 
and with a full heart whispered to a friend near him : * Daw- 
son, I see my son in the hall ; take him out.' Mr. Dawson 
at once withdrew with young Henry, and soon returned 
with the grateful intelligence that Mrs. Henry had given birth 
to a son, and that both mother and child were doing well. 
The new-born babe was named Alexander Spotswood, and 
lived to be familiar with his father's features and to enjoy 
his fame, and at the age of sixty-five was laid by his side in 
the quiet burial-ground at Red Hill." 

On this 5th of June, as we learn from the " Life 
of Archibald Alexander," the distinguished General 
Thomas Posey was so carried away by Henry's elo- 
quence that he made up his mind then and there not to 
vote for ratification. But no sooner had he got out 
from under the magical spell of the orator than he began 
to see the matter exactly as he had seen it before. 
Grigsby assures us that when Henry dwelt upon the way 
a tyrant in the Presidency might in time shackle the 
common people, Mr. Best, of Nansemond, " involun- 
tarily felt his wrists to assure himself that the fetters 

in Henry's character " ; but he was thinking of Henry's politics. 
Elsewhere he said that he had set down against Henry 
everything known to him of a derogatory nature. Practically 
he gave us nothing of consequence reflecting upon Henry, 
because there was nothing to give. Though Wirt's book was 
" a labor of love," he was glad when he had finished it. " As 
for Patrick — he is the very toughest subject I ever coped withal. 
. . . Many a weary league have I travelled with old 
Patrick." 

352 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

were not already pressing his flesh." Moreover, Best 
used to say that '' the gallery in which he sat seemed 
to become as dark as a dungeon." * So many of Henry's 
hearers affirmed as to his exceeding power in this 
oratorical particular that it should be accepted as beyond 
question. He could take a man's spirit out of him and 
absolutely charm it. But Chief-Justice Marshall wished 
it to be understood that Henry was not an orator as we 
usually take the word. He was much more than that, 
said Marshall ; he was *' a learned lawyer, a most 
accurate thinker, and a profound reasoner. If I were 
called upon to say who of all the men I have known had 
the greatest power to convince, I should perhaps say 
Mr. Madison, while Mr. Henry had without doubt the 
greatest power to persuade." It is interesting to note 
that this verdict by the illustrious Chief-Justice came 
down to us from the lips of Judge John Scott (" Barba- 
rossa "), author of " The Lost Principle, or the Sectional 
Equilibrium." 

By the 23d of June the Federalists had decided that it 
would be unwise to come to a vote without making a 
concession as to amendments. Accordingly, Chancellor 
Wythe left the chair next day, and, in behalf of the 
Madison party, proposed that Virginia should ratify, 

* Grigsby says : " I was told by a person on the floor of the 
Convention at the time, that when Henry had painted in the 
most vivid colors the dangers likely to result to the black 
population from the unlimited power of the general govern- 
ment wielded by men who had little or no interest in that 
species of property, and had filled his audience with fear, he 
suddenly broke out with the homely exclamation : ' They'll 
free your niggers! ' The audience passed instantly from fear 
to wayward laughter ; and my informant said that it was most 
ludicrous to see men, who a moment before were half fright- 
ened to death, with a broad grin on their faces." Here is 
another Grigsby note : " I have heard Governor Tazewell say 
that he has seen Henry in animated debate twirl his wig 
several times in rapid succession." 
23 353 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

with a recommendation to amend. Henry put forward 
a substitute demanding prior amendments and a Bill 
of Rights. This at once re-precipitated vigorous combat, 
which lasted for two days. Henry spoke three times. 
The second speech — that of the 24th of June— is famous 
as '' the thunder-storm oration." Following Madison, 
Henry made an appeal in which he seemed to surpass 
himself. With infectious solemnity he reiterated his 
fears that the new bond would bring woe upon the land. 
He called upon the powers above to illumine the darkness 
and show to all the imperfections of the instrument 
before them. *' I see," he cried, " the awful immensity 
of the dangers with which it is pregnant. I see it. I 
feel it. I see beings of a higher order anxious concern- 
ing our decision." 

" When, lo ! " says Wirt, " a storm at that instant rose, 
which shook the whole building, and the spirits he had called 
seemed to come at his bidding. Nor did his eloquence or 
the storm immediately cease ; but availing himself of the 
incident with a master's art, he seemed to mix in the fight 
of his ethereal auxiliaries, and, ' rising on the wings of the 
tempest, to seize upon the artillery of heaven, and direct its 
fiercest thunders against the heads of his adversaries.' The 
scene became insupportable ; and the House rose without the 
formality of an adjournment, the members rushing from their 
seats with precipitation and confusion." 

At the outset the Federalists had counted upon a 
majority of fifty. Now Madison was concerned lest 
he get no majority at all. On the day following the 
storm-scene, he closed his contention with the words : 
*' Let us join with cordiality in tho^e alterations we 
think proper. There is no friend to the Constitution 
but will concur in that mode." Henry said that whether 
he should win or lose, he would be " a peaceable citi- 
zen." He added : " My head, my hand, my heart, shall 
be at liberty to retrieve the loss of liberty, and to remove 

354 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

the defects of that system in a constitutional way." His 
resolution was voted down, 88 to 80; Wythe's carried, 
89 to 79. And thus ended a Convention which, as Rives 
expresses it, was '' second in importance only to that 
which produced a Constitution." 

Arnauld, in his " Logic," as cited by Sainte-Beuve, 
says : " The greater part of men's errors come less 
because they reason ill on true principles than because 
they reason well on false ones." Was Henry arguing 
upon false principles in this great debate? If Socialism, 
sweeping down upon us in a time of wide-spread stag- 
nation, should overturn our government, and then 
should itself fail and fall away, would a Henry argue 
for a return to State Sovereignty or a return to the 
Nationalism of the present? Were Henry alive at such 
a crisis, he would say : " The Federal Constitution, 
as amended, as interpreted, as put to the proof by time, 
is the great shield for us all. In its embryo shape, it 
did not suit some of us. But since that day a thousand 
things have happened. Conditions have changed. Man- 
kind is knit together from sea to sea. It is marvellous." 
Of the forty-five States, Henry would remark that 
thirty-two are veritable children of the Constitution. 
He would see that their Federal ties were filial and 
complete. War, that potent logician which in 1788 had 
developed State Sovereignty in its full pride before his 
eyes, had in 1861 subdued that pride — and this, too, 
he would note, recalling as he did so that he had felt 
the threat of it and the ache of it in his prophetic bones. 
He would observe that within their spheres the States 
still retain their functional rights. Surprise would be 
his, and pleasure. 

In the Convention of 1788, Henry voiced the solemn 
conviction of nearly half the people of the United States. 
Lowndes, of South Carolina, wished his epitaph to be : 
" Here lies the man that opposed the Constitution, 

355 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

because it was ruinous to the liberty of America." 
Luther Martin, of Maryland, was absolutely sincere 
v/hen he said that he would be willing to become a 
pauper if by so doing he could save his country from 
an experiment fraught with peril. The Federalist 
papers of Madison, Hamilton, and Jay had not as yet 
produced their effect. Henry, in a word, was by no 
means the only " nervous patriot " in America. Pro- 
foundly enamored of liberty, it was natural that he 
should apprehend numerous evils which never arose. 
Liberty and civil security constituted his postulate in 
the Convention debates. Fundamentally, therefore, he 
was sound. Aside from his general distrust of a con- 
solidated government and from his failure to foresee 
the miraculous fruitage of civilization on these shores 
— which he himself had helped to make brighter in the 
eyes of mankind, magnetic, indeed, to mankind — his 
mistakes were the minor mistakes of extravagant utter- 
ance. He was in the position of an advocate, a fiery 
disputant. He was intense in his nature, and imaginative 
in high degree. He used his imagination because he 
wished to stir the thoughts of men of colder tempera- 
ment, meaning to conjure up and prefigure and pre- 
examine all that might come to pass subversive of the 
common weal. 

It has been said * that after the adoption of the Con- 
stitution Henry declared he " ' would have nothing to 
do with it,' and fell for a time so completely out of touch 
with his countrymen that he not only refused to embark 
his political fortunes in what he called ' the crazy 
machine * of the Federal Government, but became so 
disaffected to the new polity that, in the first flush of 
his disgust, he thought of emigrating to North Carolina, 
where he would be outside the more perfect Union, 

* The Nation, vol. liv. 
356 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

inasmuch as that State, sharing his fears, and, as 
some charged, following his lead, had at first rejected 
the Constitution. At a later date, when North Carolina 
had acceded to the Union, he joined with some land 
companies in the purchase of vast demesnes in the 
remote and unsettled parts of Georgia — the tract 
bought by all the companies comprising 15,000,000 
acres — not only, as he confessed, from motives of 
speculation, but also from a wish to get on the frontier 
of the consolidated government." 

We may well believe that Henry wished to get on the 
frontier, whether it were the borderland of a consoli- 
dated set of former sovereignties, or the edge of an 
honest wilderness fringed with democracy ; but it does 
not appear that politics had a great deal to do with his 
land ventures, or that he at any time harbored serious 
thoughts of sulking in some hermit hut down among 
the Cherokees. His reference to " the crazy machine " 
was in a letter to Monroe, to whom he wrote : " And 
although the form of government in which my country- 
men determined to place themselves had my enmity, 
yet, as we are one and all embarked, it is natural to 
care for the crazy machine — at least, so long as we 
are out of sight of port to refit." He simply regarded 
the Ship of State as unsuited for that long voyage she 
was destined to undertake ; and, for the good of those 
on board, he hoped to see her rigged differently, caulked 
with George Mason's sterling oakum, made taut from 
stem to stern, and then refloated under the flag of the 
free. His recusancy w^as indeed persistent and at times 
bitter, but it was consistently patriotic. In proof of this 
we have the word of Richard Venable, who was at a 
meeting of the Anti-Federalist delegates on the evening 
of their defeat. Among them were some revolters 
who proposed to concert a plan of resistance to the 
new government; but Henry at once struck down their 

357 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

standard. David Meade Randolph corroborates Ven- 
able. According to Randolph, Henry said '' he had 
done his duty strenuously in opposing the Constitution, 
in the proper place, and with all the powers he pos- 
sessed. The question had been fully discussed and 
settled." Therefore, " as true and faithful republicans, 
they had all better go home ; they should cherish it and 
give it fair play — support it, too." 

Acting upon Henry's advice, the Anti-Federalists 
thereafter moved along legitimate lines of opposition, 
agitating for amendments. Henry in Virginia and 
Clinton in New York knew that the amendments would 
never be embodied in the Constitution unless the Fed- 
eralists should be forced to put them there. A mild 
and unurgent campaign would signify surrender; by 
sharp and zealous labor only could Madison and Hamil- 
ton be brought to book. 

It was Clinton's idea that a general convention should 
take up the numerous amendments proposed, and Henry 
fell in with the plan. By midsummer the Federalist 
leaders were alarmed. Madison thought that the Clinton 
programme had " a most pestilent tendency." Wash- 
ington was afraid that Henry would go to the Senate 
and *' make shipwreck " of all that had been done. 
" To be shipwrecked in sight of port," he wrote to 
Madison, " would be the severest of all possible aggra- 
vations to our misery, and I assure you I am under 
painful apprehensions from the single circumstance of 
Mr. Henry having the whole game to play in the 
Assembly of this State." Later Washington wrote to 
the same correspondent : " The accounts from Rich- 
mond are indeed very unpropitious to Federal measures. 
In one word, it is said that the edicts of Mr. H. are 
enregistered with less opposition in the Virginia Assem- 
bly than those of the grand monarch by his parliaments. 
He has only to say, let this be law, and it is law." 

358 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

What happened in the Assembly which met on the 
20th of October may be briefly told. Henry drew up 
and carried through several papers relating to the 
amendments, which, he said, were essential, since they 
conserved the " rights, liberties, and privileges of free- 
men." The counter-resolutions of the Federalists 
admitted the necessity of amendments, but favored their 
adoption in another way. Congress, it was urged, could 
submit them to the State Legislatures. By strategy, 
then, Henry was getting a part, at least, of what he 
wanted. It was clear to him that Madison dreaded 
another convention — sooner than see another, the Fed- 
eralists would accept the unwelcome appendix to their 
book, lest the book itself should be inked out and lost 
in quarrelsome revision. 

Henry refused to go to the new United States Senate. 
He nominated Richard Henry Lee and William Gray- 
son, who were elected, and incidentally he delivered 
a " tremendous philippic " against Madison, one of the 
Federalist candidates for the office. That he also en- 
deavored to keep Madison out of the new United States 
House of Representatives may be accepted as a fact; 
but it is doubtful whether Henry is entitled to the 
dubious distinction of being the first manipulator of 
Congressional districts. Gerrymandering, says Sydney 
Howard Gay, " was really the invention of Patrick 
Henry " ; and in Moses Coit Tyler's book we find the 
following : " Surely, it was a rare bit of luck, in the 
case of Patrick Henry, that the wits of Virginia did not 
anticipate the wits of Massachusetts by describing this 
trick as * henrymandering," and that he thus narrowly 
escaped the ugly immortality of having his name handed 
down from age to age in the coinage of a base word 
which should designate a base thing — one of the favor- 
ite shabby manoeuvres of less scrupulous American 
politicians." The fact is that both sides sought advan- 

359 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

tage in arranging the Orange district. " We tried to 
get Fauquier," wrote Colonel Edward Carrington, Mad- 
ison's friend, " but the power of the ' Antis ' was too 
strong for us." Nor was Henry a member of the Com- 
mittee which actually districted the State. Only by 
implication, therefore — as a leader whose will was cus- 
tomarily " enregistered " by the House of Delegates — 
is he to be associated with this early instance of " gerry- 
mandering." It was Monroe, by the by, who contested 
the Orange district with Madison. Fighting each other 
on the stump that fall, the future Presidents journeyed 
from court-house to court-house, and though Madison 
came off with victory, he also brought down from " the 
bleak hills of Culpeper " a pair of frost-bitten ears. 

During the autumn debates in the House, there was 
one delegate, at least, who had no notion of subscribing 
to Henry's opinions. This was Francis Corbin, son of 
the Receiver-General from whom Henry had exacted 
pay for the raped gunpowder. At the outbreak of the 
Revolution young Corbin had gone to England, where, 
as a college student and a courtier, he had gathered 
polish ; but now he was of the mind to favor the Vir- 
ginians with his services. So one day he undertook to 
confute and chastise Henry, selecting ridicule as his 
whip and stepping jauntily forth to the public lashing. 
Henry had been urging the necessity of the proposed 
amendments, and had concluded with the assurance 
that " he was ready and willing, at all times and on all 
occasions, to bow with the utmost deference to the 
majesty of the people." This phrase gave Corbin his 
cue. He recounted many of Henry's acts, and at the 
end of each sarcastic recital exclaimed : " Yet the 
gentleman tells us that ' he bows to the majesty of 
the people ' ! " Whereupon the young man himself 
bowed, " in the most elegant manner." Let Wirt finish 
the tale: 

360 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

" Thus he [Corbinl proceeded, through a number of animated 
sentences, winding up each with the same words, sarcastically 
repeated, and the accompaniment of the same graceful obeisance. 
Among other things, he said ' it was of little importance 
whether a country was ruled by a despot with a tiara on his 
head, or by a demagogue in a red cloak, a caul-bare wig,' etc. 
(describing Mr. Henry's dress so minutely as to draw every 
eye upon him), 'although he should profess on all occasions 
to bow to the majesty of the people.' A gentleman who was 
present and who, struck with the singularity of the attack, 
had the curiosity to number the vibrations of those words, 
and the accompanying action, states that he counted thirteen 
of the most graceful bows he ever beheld. The friends of 
Mr. Henry considered such an attack on a man of his years 
and high character as very little short of sacrilege ; on the 
other side of the House, there was, indeed, a smothered sort 
of dubious laugh, in which there seemed to be at least as 
much apprehension as enjoyment. Mr. Henry had heard the 
whole of it without any apparent mark of attention. The 
young gentleman, having finished his philippic, very much at 
least to his own satisfaction, took his seat with the gayest 
expression of triumph in his countenance. 

"'Heu! Nescia mens hominum fati sortisque fiiturcr!' 

" Mr. Henry raised himself up heavily, and with affected 
awkwardness — ' Mr. Speaker,' said he, ' I am a plain man, and 
have been educated altogether in Virginia. My whole life 
has been spent among planters, and other plain men of similar 
education, who have never had the advantage of that polish 
which a court alone can give, and which the gentleman over 
the way has so happily acquired ; indeed, sir, the gentleman's 
employments and mine (in common with the great mass of 
his countrymen) have been as widely different as our fortunes; 
for while that gentleman was availing himself of the oppor- 
tunity, which a splendid fortune afforded him, of acquiring 
a foreign education, mixing among the great, attending levees 
and courts, basking in the beams of royal favor at St. James', 
and exchanging courtesies with crowned heads' (here he imi- 
tated Mr. Corbin's bows at court, making one elegant, but 
most obsequious and sycophantic bow), 'I was engaged in the 
arduous toils of the Revolution, and was probably as far from 
thinking of acquiring those polite accomplishments which the 
gentleman has so successfully cultivated, as that gentleman 
was from sharing in the toils and dangers in which his 
unpolished countrymen were engaged. I will not therefore 

361 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

presume to vie with the gentleman in those courtly accomplish- 
ments of which he has just given the House so agreeable a 
specimen ; yet such a bow as I can make shall ever be at 
the service of the people.' Herewith, although there was no 
man who could make a more graceful bow than Mr. Henry, 
he made one so ludicrously awkward and clownish as took the 
House by surprise and put them in a roar of laughter. * The 
gentleman, I hope, will commiserate the disadvantages of 
education under which I have labored, and will be pleased to 
remember that I have never been a favorite with that mon- 
arch whose gracious smile he has had the happiness to enjoy.' 
He pursued this contrast of situations and engagements for 
fifteen or twenty minutes, without a smile, and without the 
smallest token of resentment, either in countenance, expression, 
or manner. * You would almost have sworn,' says a corre- 
spondent, * that he thought himself making his apology for his 
own awkwardness, before a full drawing-room at St. James'.' 
I believe there was not a person that heard him, the sufferer 
himself excepted, who did not feel every risible nerve affected. 
His adversary meantime hung down his head, and sinking 
lower and lower, until he was almost concealed behind the 
interposing forms, submitted to the discipline as quietly as a 
Russian malefactor who had been beaten with the knout 
till all sense of feeling was lost." 



Henry's sway at Richmond remained unbroken by 
Federalist attacks, and Mount Vernon was disturbed. 
Tobias Lear wrote thence : " And after he had settled 
everything relative to the government wholly, I sup- 
pose, to his satisfaction, he mounted his horse and rode 
home, leaving the little business of the State to be done 
by anybody who chose to give themselves the trouble 
of attending it." Bancroft uses almost the same words 
in telling of Henry's departure for Prince Edward in 
November, 1788. But Henry had a peculiar reason for 
leaving Richmond. His sister Anne had come home 
from Kentucky to die. It was the wish to see this dear 
one and be with her that led him to turn his back upon 
Federalists and Anti-Federalists alike. He was sorry 
to lose Washington's friendship; but it seemed to him 

Zt2 



CHIEF CRITIC OF THE CONSTITUTION 

to be necessary to oppose that great man, and he did 
so without undue compunction. Nor was he in the 
least distressed by the attacks of the Independent 
Chronicle, of Richmond. These began in December and 
continued until March. They were signed " Decius," 
supposed by some to be James Montgomery, but more 
probably John Nicholas. They were most malefic and 
abominable, but Henry minded them not. His friends 
throughout the State were outraged, and some of them 
rushed into print. In Hanover a " Decius " defender 
was *' flogged " for his pains. In the end, as Edmund 
Randolph noted in a letter to Madison, the attacks did 
the Federalists more harm than good. 

Madison's election to Congress was only brought 
about by a promise made by him that he would coun- 
tenance the amendments to the Constitution. Accord- 
ingly, when Congress met, he introduced in the House 
not twenty but seventeen amendments. The Senate 
cut the seventeen down to twelve ; and finally, on De- 
cember 15, 1 79 1, ten of these amendments became 
a part of the Constitution. On the theory that half a 
loaf is better than none, Henry was obliged to be con- 
tent. But he was despondent. Hamilton's Assumption 
Act troubled him greatly, because it foretokened the 
loss of powers to the States and the gain of central 
strength. Moreover, the Assembly of 1789 was less 
to his liking than previous Legislatures had been. Upon 
Grayson's death, in 1790, Henry shook his head when 
asked to stand for the Senate, and at the end of that 
year he retired from public life. 

William Wirt Henry is justified in regarding the 
Virginia debates as of prime value in supplementing 
the work of the Constitutional Convention. At the 
moment of the adoption of the new government, he 
says, " two conflicting theories as to its nature " were 
advanced. 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

" They continued to divide parties afterward more distinctly. 
The party organized by Jefferson, and afterward led by 
Calhoun, insisted that the States had entered into a compact, 
that they were still sovereign, and had only delegated powers 
which could be recalled. The party organized by Hamilton, 
and afterward led by Webster, agreed with Mr. Henry, that 
the people of the States had created a national government, 
and endowed it with certain supreme powers which were 
irrevocable by the several States, except by amendment^ as 
provided in the instrument itself, or by revolution. This con- 
struction was adopted by the Supreme Court, and acted on 
by the Federal Government in its several departments, and 
has been finally established beyond controversy by the result 
of the greatest civil war history has recorded, brought about 
by the endeavor of the Southern States to exercise the asserted 
right of secession." 



364 



XVI 

AS A LAWYER — ANECDOTES 

We have seen why and how Patrick Henry became 
a lawyer; we have looked into the fee-books kept by 
him prior to the Revolution, which interrupted his 
practice ; and we have heard one of his friends say 
to him : '' Go back to the bar — your tongue will soon 
pay your debts." But as yet we have not stepped into 
his old stick-gig and journeyed with him along the Vir- 
ginia roads towards some distant court-house. This 
gig, or " chair," and the little hair-trunk Henry strapped 
on behind the seat are now the prized possessions of 
Louis D. Jones at New Store, in Buckingham. Fresh 
linen, papers pertinent to suits that were to be argued, 
and a book or so were packed in the trunk. There is 
evidence that Henry appreciated books more thoroughly 
as he grew older. In one sense, he must have had less 
need of them — in executing the laws he must have 
learned a great deal of law; in drafting bills he must 
have perfected himself along certain lines ; in buying 
land he must have acquired useful information — in a 
word, the experiences of his later life had added to his 
legal store ; yet we find him peering between book- 
covers as he followed the roads in his gig. Some of his 
law-books were tossed up by the Civil War into the 
auction-mart at Richmond, and sold and scattered. Per- 
haps a favorite volume was Dunmore's black-letter Coke, 
v/hich Henry had bought in Williamsburg. Campbell, 
who saw the book, says : " It has his lordship's arms 
and the orator's autograph." Judge Winston tells us 
that Henry travelled about "on a circuit (Nelson and 
White, Judges) carrying Soame Jenyns, of which he 

365 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

gave the Judges a copy, desiring them at the same time 
not to take him for a travelhng monk." This book, 
which bears the title, " Internal Evidences of Christian- 
ity," was printed and given free circulation in Virginia 
at Henry's own expense. Howe says that Henry did 
the same with Butler's *' Analogy," adding : '' Sherlock's 
Sermons, he affirmed, was the work which removed all 
his doubts of the truth of Christianity ; a copy of which, 
until a short time since, was filled with marginal notes. 
He read it every Sunday evening to his family, after 
which they all joined in sacred music, while he accom- 
panied them on the violin. He never quoted poetry. 
His quotations were from the Bible, and his illustrations 
from the Bible and ancient and modern history." * 

But we have taken him away from his family and 
started him in his gig towards the court-houses ; and we 
shall go on in that direction after inviting attention to 
an important fact: Henry was almost a born believer, 
as well as a born Whig. He got his religion and his 
politics out of nature in the first place, and in the next 
place out of that part of the Bible which teaches kind- 
ness to all men. Milton, Locke, Sidney, and other 
great forebears of freedom had intellectualized the grand 
political idea; but it came to Henry, as it did to other 
men of his day, by the working of his own mind. Now, 

*In William Meade's "Old Churches, Ministers, and 
Families of Virginia," vol. ii, p. 12, the Rev. Mr. Dresser says 
that Patrick Henry had " a very great abhorrence of infidelity, 
and actually wrote a reply to ' Paine's Age of Reason,' but 
destroyed it before his death." " This," comments Edward 
Fontaine, " is certainly true. My father, Colonel Patrick H. 
Fontaine, was the oldest grandson of Patrick Henry. He was 
living with his grandfather when he wrote the reply to Paine 
mentioned by Mr. Dresser." But Patrick Henry, having read 
Bishop Watson's " Apology for the Bible," and deeming it a 
sufficient answer to Paine, decided not to publish his own 
manuscript. 



AS A LAWYER 

while he was on the circuit, it became fashionable in 
Virginia for young men to pin atheistic ruffles to their 
shirts. French views were popular, and threatened to 
prevail. Henry was hurt by the talk of the young men. 
Here from the Wirt papers is a scrap of manuscript, 
much crumpled, torn, and stained, and it reads: 

" When the first Constitution of France (in 1789) was formed, 
it afforded great and general satisfaction, and became the sub- 
ject of conversation in a circle of which Mr. P. Henry was one. 
He was asked what he thought of it, and whether the powers 
of Europe would consent to its undisturbed operation. He 
immediately replied : * No, no, no ! — the Kings and Powers of 
Europe will not rest until they have deluged that country in 
blood.' " 

He sympathized with the multitudes of fellow-beings 
who were under the yoke in France, but he had no 
patience with the extravagances and bloody horrors of 
French democracy, and would not put up with French 
infidelity. In course of time his antipathy to the im- 
ported doctrines would cause him to oppose them politi- 
cally, but just now he was endeavoring as best he could 
to counteract the irreligious tendency of the hour. That 
is why he praised Soame Jenyns to the judges and 
doubtless to others whom he met on the road or on the 
court-house greens. 

We of this day would like to come upon a good 
report of some roadside talk with Henry about the dif- 
ference between the American and French Revolutions. 
We can imagine the scene — a summer sky, with woolly 
clouds lazily drifting; shade at a cool ford, the horses 
splashing; an interested questioner in one gig, and 
Henry answering from the other. We shoidd like to 
hear Henry on this subject, because we are sure he 
would show with precision wherein his democracy and 
Mason's differed from the newfangled French democ- 
racy about to be engrafted by Jefferson upon the Ameri- 

Z^7 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

can stock. But possibly, at such a meeting, each way- 
farer would have produced a Federal receipt for his gig- 
tax ; the talk, indeed, might have been upon that — the 
first United States internal tax; a strange thing for 
Stamp Act survivors to contemplate, and a matter pro- 
vocative of " remarks " at the expense of a consolidated 
government which might end in heaven knew what. 

Several taverns south of the James preserve traditions 
of Henry as a guest, but the '' Lawyers," eight miles 
from New London Court-house, is more richly rem- 
iniscent of him than any other. Not far away is Jef- 
ferson's '* Poplar Forest," an octagonal brick Monticello 
in miniature, designed by Jefferson himself, and shaded 
by trees that were huge of girth long before he or any 
other white man looked upon the Blue Ridge. Another 
great Democrat comes into the story at this point — 
General Andrew Jackson, who saw Henry once, probably 
at New London. In Parton's " Life of Jackson," 
Colonel Avery is quoted thus : 

" I was present one evening in Jonesboro when General 
Jackson was talking to some dozen of his friends. He told 
them that in passing through a town in Virginia he learned at 
breakfast that Patrick Henry was to defend a criminal that day. 
He was induced to stop. ' No. description I had ever heard,' 
said Jackson, warmly, ' no conception I had ever formed, had 
given me any just ideas of the man's powers of eloquence.'" 

Judge Roane says : " It was as a criminal lawyer that 
his eloquence had the fairest scope." William Wirt 
Henry adds : " His wonderful powers as an advocate 
made him especially great in nisi prius practice, but he 
was also retained in important chancery causes, and 
some of his greatest triumphs were in arguments 
addressed to judges on questions of law. Having dis- 
continued his profession for over thirteen years, it was 
wonderful how rapidly he was able to recall it, and enter 

368 



AS A LAWYER 

at once upon one of the most brilliant careers as an 
advocate ever known to the profession." 

His fame, his popularity, his extraordinary persua- 
siveness, caused clients to come to him, not only from 
Prince Edward and the adjoining counties, but from 
remote regions. Hence he could dictate large fees, and 
require his clients to employ other lawyers to get every- 
thing ready in the preliminaries. A letter of his to Rob- 
ert Carter, of Nomini, shows just how he managed the 
matter of fees. From this Carter another Carter, 
Colonel Charles, wished to recover twelve thousand 
acres of land. The trial was at far-away Leesburg, 
near Potomac water, and Henry must have been many 
days in his gig when he journeyed thither. Edmund 
Randolph, who was the opposing counsel, writes to a 
friend, under date of Fredericksburg, August i8, 1789: 

" The day before yesterday I returned thither from Lees- 
burg, where I was confronted with Mr. Henry, and for three 
days we lay alongside of each other. It was a diverting scene, 
taken in the whole. My client, Charles Carter, must have 
been defeated if a single point of four had gone against him; 
and to obtain one everything was attempted in the way of 
assertion, declamation, and solecism. In three points the Court 
was unanimous against Mr. H. ; on the fourth he had a bare 
majority. Thus being mortified with defeats, and willing to 
disguise them under the name of a compromise, he proposed 
that his client, Robert Carter, should surrender 6000 acres of 
land and £ 450. To this I agreed, knowing that two of the four 
points were in strictness by no means in our favor." 

But Henry's letter puts the matter in a different light. 
So far from being chagrined, he was felicitating himself 
upon having brought his client out of a slippery situa- 
tion. He reminds Carter that in case of failure the 
fee was to be one hundred guineas ; in case of complete 
success, four hundred guineas ; and he takes him sharply 
to task for the non-payment of the two hundred guineas 
demanded. 

24 369 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Henry was accused of exacting large fees ; hence 
there is a tradition, now wide-spread in Virginia, that he 
was too eager for money. This tradition has bred an- 
other — to the effect that he was frugal in small things. 
It is even said that he wore a cap indoors to save his 
wig. William Sullivan, in his '' Familiar Letters on 
Public Characters and Public Events," says : " Gentle- 
men wore wigs when abroad, and commonly caps when 
at home." Writing of John Hancock, he adds : 

"At this time (June, 1782), about noon, Hancock was 
dressed in a red velvet cap, within which was one of fine 
linen. The latter was turned up over the lower edge of the 
velvet one two or three inches. He wore a blue damask gown 
lined with silk, a white stock, a white satin embroidered 
waistcoat, black satin small-clothes, white silk stockings, and 
red morocco slippers." 

In the light of this testimony as to caps and the like, 
it is clear that the notably hospitable Henry, who was 
liberal enough to print books at his own expense that 
he might give them away, has been abused by tradition. 
Yet tradition is well supported when it declares that 
Henry worked hard to acquire a fortune. He felt him- 
self weakening in health, and he knew that if old age 
should catch him poor the world would let him remain 
so. The world is a grateful world sentimentally, but 
ungrateful when it comes to the matter of bread, meat, 
and a proper allowance of self-respect. He had given 
the best of himself to the public. That was very well 
in its way ; but prosaic times had now come on, so he 
must consider his private responsibilities — must provide 
for his patriarchal family, and must exercise the same 
care in his work for himself as he had shown in his 
work for the people. Hence he became a busy man, 
' a money-maker ; and the more money he made, the 
greater was his thrift. 

370 



AS A LAWYER 

Further analysis of this part of Henry's character 
indicates that he was influenced by the recollection of 
his father's shortcomings in practical matters. John 
Henry was bookish, and, like many bookish men in all 
generations, he was weak as a money-maker. In con- 
sequence, he was frequently in trouble. Patrick Henry 
may have made up his mind not to be as his father had 
been — a victim of impracticality — but to acquire a com- 
petence. This explains why, in some particulars, he 
may have been a " close man," as he certainly was a 
" business man," with the accretive sense duly developed. 
His fees were larger in proportion than the fees of 
contemporary lawyers. There are many lawyers now 
who would think Henry's fees small, but they were large 
for that day. 

As in Henry's case, Washington's business ability was 
pronounced. His training as a surveyor made him 
appreciate the value of land, and he was shrewd to 
profit by what he knew in this respect. He, too, had the 
accretive sense. He was in every way a solid, substan- 
tial man, who expressed himself clearly because he 
thought clearly. His uniform hand in writing shows 
how equable he was. Henry's drive-ahead hand is also 
in character. The spaces between his words are thin, 
and the words themselves convey the exact meaning 
intended. 

About the time Henry turned to the pursuit of riches, 
he wrote to Richard Henry Lee : " Your age and mine 
seems to exempt us from the task of stepping forth again 
into the busy scenes which now present themselves." 
Both must have felt that they had seen enough of public 
life. It is the nature of men to be fired with zeal, and 
then, when their ends have been attained, to lose their 
zest for the very work once so absorbing to them. 
Henry, for his part, had supped to surfeit on public 
honors. He had been too popular for his own peace, 

371 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

and the revulsion from his own glories was a natural 
thing. Mason, an admirable character, likewise turned 
back to his farm. He possessed a healthy nature — 
was interested in the affairs of his own little world. 
His sense of duty to the numerous people around him 
was strong. There was no lack of public spirit in these 
men at any time, as long as they lived; but they had a 
proper sense of their obligations to their own house- 
holds. 

When it is said that Henry grew rich before he with- 
drew from the bar, we must understand that he was only 
relatively rich — independent. A fortune that would now 
seem small appeared large in those days. He was proud 
of his success as a money-maker — prouder of that than 
of his successes in statesmanship. Here we detect a 
vagary, a flaw in his character, and conclude that we love 
the young and fiery and resolute and glorious Henry 
better than we do the old Henry, tying the strings of 
his guinea-bag. But we are also to remember the chill 
that comes over the spirit of old men when they think 
of their near approach to dissolution, and w^e are to 
bear in mind that in age the heart of a man like Henry 
is consumingly tender towards his offspring. 

Most of the anecdotes about Henry's shrewdness in 
extricating clients from difficulties relate to this period of 
his practice. No doubt some of these stories, as told in 
Virginia to-day, are tinctured by the medium through 
which they have passed in coming down to us. If the 
tale be coarse, as it often is, it may have got its coarse- 
ness in franker times than ours, or it may have been 
vulgarized by tavern gossips, who put into it a coloring 
all their own. Many of the anecdotes have variants, 
according to the locality in which they are told. But 
humor usually runs through them ; and Henry is in- 
variably the hero. 

There are several tliieving knaves in the Henry anec- 

372 



AS A LAWYER 

dotes. He missed so much corn from one of his corn- 
cribs that he decided to bring the culprit to book. Ac- 
cordingly, a steel-trap was set inside the crib, near an 
opening through which the thief drew out the corn. 
Henry himself paid an early morning visit to the crib ; 
and lo ! alongside it, by the aperture, was a neighbor 
of good substance and repute. One arm was invisible, 
and the entrapped rogue stood as if leaning against the 
crib. " Good morning, sir," said Henry, with politeness 
and friendly warmth. He asked after the man's family ; 
spoke volubly of the weather, the crops, politics ; and, 
turning finally, cried out in the heartiest manner, " Come 
in to breakfast — come on in ! " And with that he walked 
briskly away. One may imagine the grin and the glib 
observations of the black boy secretly sent by Henry to 
liberate the poacher. 

Since Henry undoubtedly had " a tendency to grace," 
it is hard to believe the traditional shoat story heard in 
the Lynchburg region, where he is still spoken of as 
*' the Governor." It is told in about this style : " A 
man stole a hog, dressed it, and went to the Governor 
to defend him. The Governor said: "Did you walk 
away with that shoat ? ' 'I don't like to say.' * Out 
with it!' ' Yessir.' 'Have you got the carcass?' 
' Yessir.' ' You go home, you wretch ; cut the pig 
lengthwise in half, and hang as much of it in my smoke- 
house as you keep in yours.' At court the Governor 
said : * Your Honor, this man has no more of that 
stolen shoat than I have. If necessary, I'd kiss the 
Bible on this.' The man was cleared." 

As Henry keenly enjoyed practical jokes at the ex- 
pense of his friends on the bench, as he liked to do sur- 
prising things of a harmless sort, and as he was a 
privileged character in some degree, it is possible that 
the various petit larceny anecdotes were based on actual 
happenings. One Sunday evening, while on the way to 

2>7Z 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

a court in which he was to appear next morning, he fell 
in with a witness in a horse-stealing case. They talked 
it over. Said Henry, commenting on an assertion: 
*' You wouldn't say that in open court if I'd give you 
every guinea I'm jingHng here in my hand." Vowing 
that he would, the man took the money. When he stood 
up to testify next day, Henry, who was counsel for 
the defendant, also rose, and made short work of him 
and of the case, on the ground that a witness who would 
permit himself to be influenced by money was incom- 
petent. If this tale and others like it be true — and the 
specimens here given have no basis but countryside tra- 
dition — the standard of ethics at the criminal bar was 
much lower in those days than at present. 

But here is a more pleasing story, illustrative of 
Henry's ingenuity. It is a part of the folk-lore of 
Virginia. As told by a graybeard, sitting on the steps 
of St. John's Church, within a few feet of the spot where 
Henry stood while making his " Liberty or Death '* 
speech, it had a charm and an effectiveness impossible 
to reconvey on this poor page, since no birds sing for 
us here as they sang in the beautiful grove, with its 
graves of great men, its trees, and its flowers. 

" Did you ever know," said the graybeard, resting 
his hands on the knob of his hickory stick, " how Patrick 
Henry untwisted a little love-tangle? I'll tell you. A 
young fellow wanted to get married without being over- 
taken by the law. The girl, ditto; but her parents 
objected. She was not of age, and the law had it all 
fixed that if he ran away with her and was caught, he 
could be sent to jail. That's where the trouble was. 
But the young fellow took his trouble to Patrick Henry ; 
and Patrick said : ' You really love her, do you ? How 
much do you love her? Do you love her better than 
gold? How much would you give out of pocket if 
you could get your sweetheart and never cast a shadow 

374 



AS A LAWYER 

in the doorway of a jail ? ' ' I'd give a hundred guineas/ 
said his client. ' Agreed ! Now do as I tell you. Go 
see your ladylove; request her to take a horse out of 
her father's stable, mount, make off, and meet you 
at an appointed place. You are to be on foot. You 
are to get on behind her. Ride to the nearest preacher's, 
and get married. You will be arrested ; but never mind 
that, for I shall be there to see you through.' Now we 
come to the second chapter — with everybody in court 
from five miles 'round. The Commonwealth's attorney 
said it was so plain a case that he would simply state 
the law and the facts, and be done with it. He did so; 
after which Patrick got up, and admitted that the law 
was just as the prosecutor had urged. But he would be 
better satisfied, he said, if the young woman should take 
the stand and give an account of the elopement. So up 
she went, the pretty bride, and all the men shuffled and 
craned, and the judges sat straight. Then she said, 
said she : ' I told my lover to meet me at a certain spot. 
I got out a good horse from my father's stable, and rode 
to where he was. I took my lover up behind me, and 
ran away with him.' * Did he run away with you ? ' 
said the sly old Pat. ' No, sir, I ran away with him.' 
* Oh ! ' said Patrick, ' I see ! ' The court got into a side- 
splitting shake ; the crowd roared ; the Commonwealth 
attorney came down the persimmon-tree, and the happy 
chap marched off with the persimmon." 

Of the authenticated stories, one of the best has the 
old Court-house at New London as the scene. Prior 
to the Revolution, many Scotch merchants lived at New 
London ; and the Chevalier deChastellux saw in it a thriv- 
ing border town. A print in Howe's " Historical Col- 
lections " shows the Court-house as a plain, one-story 
frame structure, dismally suggestive of tens of thou- 
sands of American dwellings of the pioneering period, 
when a roof was a thing that kept the rain away, and no 

375 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

more. Here was tried the case of John Hook, who 
kept a store at New London, against John Venable, a 
commissary of the Continental Army. Hook was a 
Scotchman and a Tory, and when the American soldiers 
were suffering for food during the Cornwallis invasion, 
Venable had seized two of Hook's steers. Says Wirt, 
on the authority of Judge Archibald Stuart : 

" The act had not been strictly legal ; and on the establish- 
ment of peace, Hook, under the advice of Mr. Cowan, a 
gentleman of some distinction in the law, thought proper to 
bring an action of trespass against Mr. Venable, in the district 
court of New London. Mr. Henry appeared for the defendant, 
and is said to have disported himself in this cause to the 
infinite enjoyment of his hearers, the unfortunate Hook always 
excepted. He appeared to have complete control over the 
passions of his audience : at one time he excited their indig- 
nation against Hook — vengeance was visible in every counte- 
nance; again, when he chose to relax, and ridicule him, the 
whole audience was in a roar of laughter. He painted the 
distresses of the American army, exposed almost naked to the 
rigor of a winter's sky, and marking the frozen ground over 
which they marched with the blood of their unshod feet. 
* Where was the man,' he said, ' who had an American heart in 
his bosom, who would not have thrown open his fields, his 
barns, his cellars, the doors of his house, the portals of his 
breast, to receive with open arms the meanest soldier in that 
little band of famished patriots? Where is the man? There hQ 
stands — but whether the heart of an American beats in his 
bosom, you, gentlemen, are to judge.' He then carried the 
jury, by the powers of his imagination, to the plains around 
York, the surrender of which had followed shortly after the act 
complained of ; he depicted the surrender in the most noble 
and glowing colors of his eloquence — the audience saw before 
their eyes the humiliation and dejection of the British as they 
marched out of their trenches — they saw the triumph which 
lighted up every patriot face, and heard the shouts of victory, 
and the cry of Washington and liberty, as it rung and echoed 
through the American ranks, and was reverberated from the 
hills and shores of the neighboring river — ' But hark ! What 
notes of discord are these which disturb the general joy and 
silence the acclamations of victory? They are the notes of 



AS A LAWYER 

John Hook, hoarsely bawling through the American camp, 
beef! beef! beef!' 

" The whole audience was convulsed. A particular incident 
will give a better idea of the effect than any general description. 
The clerk of the court, unable to command himself, and un- 
willing to commit any breach of decorum in his place, rushed 
out of the court-house and threw himself on the grass, in the 
most violent paroxysm of laughter, where he was rolling when 
Hook, with very dift'erent feelings, came out for relief into 
the yard also. ' Jemmy Steptoe,' said he to the clerk, * what 
the devil ails ye, mon ? ' Mr, Steptoe was only able to say 
that he could not help it. ' Never mind ye,' said Hook, 
' wait till Billy Cowan gets up : he '11 show him the la'.' Mr. 
Cowan, however, was so completely overwhelmed by the 
torrent which bore upon his client, that when he rose to reply 
to Mr. Henry, he v/as scarcely able to make an intelligible or 
audible remark. The cause was decided almost by acclamation. 
The jury retired, for form's sake, and instantly returned with 
a verdict for the defendant. Nor did the effect of Mr. 
Henry's speech stop here. The people were so highly excited 
by the Tory audacity of such a suit, that Hook began to hear 
around him a cry more terrible than that of beef : it was the 
cry of tar and feathers ; from the application of which it is 
said that nothing saved him but a precipitate flight and the 
speed of his horse." 

For accuracy's sake, we may add that the jury in this 
'' Johnny " Hook case did not return a '' verdict for the 
defendant." It became the duty of the same ** Jemmy " 
Steptoe who rolled off his surplusage of hilarity on the 
Court-house green to write in the records : " The verdict 
v/as for one penny damages, and one penny costs to be 
paid by the plaintiff." "^ 

In 1813 there appeared in the Republican Farmer, of 
Staunton, a series of papers under the title '' The Aloun- 

* There are descendants of John Hook in Franklin County, 
Virginia, who do not relish the accepted account of this 
humorous scene. As recently as September i, 1875, there ap- 
peared in the Richmond Dispatch a long defence of Hook, who 
acquired a great deal of land, owned a hundred slaves, and 
" died rich and respected." 

Z77 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

taineer." They were written by the Rev. Dr. Conrad 
Speece, of the Augusta Church. One of them follows : 

" Many years ago, I was at the trial, in one of our District 
Courts, of a man charged with murder. The case was briefly 
this : the prisoner had gone, in execution of his office as 
constable, to arrest a slave who had been guilty of some mis- 
conduct, and bring him to justice. Expecting opposition in 
the business, the constable took several men with him, some 
of them armed. They found the slave on the plantation of 
his master, within view of the house, and proceeded to seize 
and bind him. His mistress, seeing the arrest, came down and 
remonstrated vehemently against it. Finding her efforts un- 
availing, she went off to a barn where her husband was, who 
was presently perceived running briskly to the house. It was 
known he always kept a loaded rifle over his door. The 
constable now desired his company to remain where they were, 
taking care to keep the slave in custody, while he himself would 
go to the house to prevent mischief. When he arrived within 
a short distance of it, the master appeared, coming out of the 
house with his rifle in his hand. Some witnesses said that as 
he came to the door he drew the cock of the piece, and was 
seen in the act of raising it to the position of firing. But upon 
these points there was not an entire agreement in the evidence. 
The constable, standing near a small building in the yard, at this 
instant fired, and the fire had a fatal effect. No previous 
malice was proved against him ; and his plea upon the trial 
was, that he had taken the life of his assailant in necessary 
self-defence. 

" A great mass of testimony was delivered. This was com- 
mented upon with considerable ability by the lawyer for the 
Commonwealth, and by another lawyer engaged by the friends 
of the deceased for the prosecution. The prisoner was also 
defended, in elaborate speeches, by two respectable advocates. 
These proceedings brought the day to a close. The general 
whisper through the crowded house was, that the man was 
guilty and could not be saved. 

" About dusk candles were brought, and Henry arose. His 
manner was exactly that which ' the British Spy ' describes 
with so much felicity ; plain, simple, and entirely unassuming. 

"'Gentlemen of the jury,' said he, 'I dare say we are all 
very much fatigued with this tedious trial. The prisoner at the 
bar has been well defended already ; but it is my duty to 

378 



AS A LAWYER 

offer you some further observations in behalf of this unfortu- 
nate man. I shall aim at brevity. But should I take up more 
of your time than you expect, I hope you will hear me with 
patience when you consider that blood is concerned.' 

" I cannot admit the possibility that any one, who never 
heard Henry speak, should be made fully to conceive the force 
of impression which he gave to these few words, ' blood is 
concerned.' I had been on my feet through the day, pushed 
about in the crowd, and was excessively weary. I was strongly 
of opinion, too, notwithstanding all the previous defensive 
pleadings, that the prisoner was guilty of murder, and I felt 
anxious to know how the matter would terminate. Yet when 
Henry had uttered these words, my feelings underwent an 
instantaneous change. I found everything within me answering : 
' Yes, since blood is concerned, in the name of all that is 
righteous, go on ; we will hear you with patience until the 
rising of to-morrow's sun ! ' 

" This bowing of the soul must have been universal ; for 
the profoundest silence reigned, as if our very breath had 
been suspended. The spell of the magician was upon us all, 
and we stood like statues around him. Under the touch of 
his genius, every particular of the story assumed a new aspect, 
and his cause became continually more bright and promising. 
At length he arrived at the fatal act itself : ' You have been 
told, gentlemen, that the prisoner was bound by every obliga- 
tion to avoid the supposed necessity of firing by leaping behind a 
house near which he stood at that moment. Had he been 
attacked with a club, or with stones, the argument would 
have been unanswerable, and I should feel myself compelled 
to give up the defence in despair. But surely I need not 
tell you, gentlemen, how wide is the difference between sticks 
or stones and double-triggered, loaded rifles cocked at your 
breast!' The effect of this terrible image, exhibited in this 
great orator's peerless manner, cannot be described, I dare 
not attempt to delineate the paroxysm of emotion which it 
excited in every heart. The result of the whole was that the 
prisoner was acquitted ; with the perfect approbation, I believe, 
of the numerous assembly who attended the trial. What was 
it that gave such transcendent force to the eloquence of 
Henry ? His reasoning powers were good ; but they have been 
equalled, and more than equalled, by those of many other men. 
His imagination was exceedingly quick, and commanded all 
the stores of nature as materials for illustrating his subject. 
His voice and delivery were inexpressibly happy. But his most 

379 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

irresistible charm was the vivid feeling of his cause with which 
he spoke. Such feeling infallibly communicates itself to the 
breast of the hearer." 

Here, now, we come to a celebrated case in which 
comedy and tragedy are well woven. Shortly after 
Henry had moved to Campbell County, says his grand- 
son, a messenger arrived, bearing a letter from Richard 
Randolph, then in Cumberland jail on the charge of 
murder. Mr. Randolph offered him two hundred and 
fifty guineas as a fee to defend him. Mr. Henry replied 
that he was too unwell to take the journey — quite a long 
one from Long Island — to Cumberland Court-house. 
Some days afterward, the messenger returned with an 
offer of five hundred guineas as the fee, and urging 
him to appear at the trial, which was near at hand. Mr. 
Henry called his wife. " Dolly," said he, " Mr. Ran- 
dolph seems very anxious that I should appear for 
him, and five hundred guineas is a large sum. Don't 
you think I could make the trip in the carriage ? " Upon 
her assenting, the carriage was brought out, and he 
arrived at Cumberland Court-house in time for the 
examining court which convened for the trial. 

Richard Randolph was one of the finest of men. He 
lived at " Bizarre," near Prince Edward Court-house. 
Henry knew him well, and was fond of him. John 
Randolph, then twenty and not as yet " of Roanoke," 
was Richard's brother, and dwelt with him at " Bizarre." 
Their beautiful mother, Frances Bland, is well known 
to story. Her sons by her second marriage, which was 
with Judge St. George Tucker, were almost as distin- 
guished as the odd genius who owed his being to the 
first. Here is William Wirt Henry's account of the 
trial : 

" The charge against Richard Randolph was the murder of 
a newly-born infant, of which he was the reputed father. 

380 



AS A LAWYER 

The most intense excitement had been aroused against him 
in his county, and upon his arrest he had been refused bail. 
Mr. Randolph's anxiety for the result may be estimated by the 
array of counsel that appeared for him. He was defended by 
Alexander Campbell, an eminent advocate, John Marshall 
[Chief-Justice Marshall], and Patrick Henry. The trial was 
one of the most memorable that ever occurred in Virginia. To 
Mr. Henry was assigned the task of examining the witnesses, 
which he is said to have done with wonderful skill. One in- 
cident of this examination is traditional. The chief witness 
against the prisoner was a daughter of Archibald Cary, who 
after her marriage had lived in Cumberland. It may be well 
imagined that she had no partiality for the counsel who cross- 
examined her. Mr. Henry saw the necessity of breaking down 
her testimony, and soon found an opportunity of doing so. The 
witness testified that her suspicions had been aroused concern- 
ing the lady involved, and, being on one occasion in the house 
with her, she had attempted to satisfy her curiosity by peep- 
ing through a crack in the door of the lady's chamber while 
she was undressing. Mr. Henry at once resorted to his 
inimitable power of exciting ridicule by the tones of his voice, 
and, in a manner which convulsed the audience, asked her : 

" * Which eye did you peep with ? ' 

" The laughter in the court-room aroused the anger of the 
witness, which was excited to the highest pitch when Mr. Henry 
turned to the Court, and exclaimed in his most effective 
manner : ' Great God, deliver us from eavesdroppers ! ' " 

Henry's management of this witness is still talked of 
among Virginia lawyers. While hiring her on to her 
own frustration, his acting was extraordinary. It was 
Hke a scene out of Shakespeare. He used one meaning 
for her and another for the audience. She could not 
see that he was mocking her, but everybody else saw it. 
He actually had her down on her knees in the court- 
room, showing how she peeked through the crack. He, 
too, peeked. He talked as she talked, and not until the 
climax that brought the outburst of laughter — " Which 
eye did you peep with ? " — did the witness realize her 
entrapment and the practical breakdown of her testi- 
mony. 

381 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Such was the comedy. But, though Richard Ran- 
dolph went free, his heart was broken, and he soon died. 
No doubt John of Roanoke was embittered by his 
brother's trial, which helped to develop his native eccen- 
tricity. He once spoke of Henry as " the greatest orator 
that ever lived." In his extravagant way, he added that 
Henry was '* Shakespeare and Garrick combined, and 
spake as no man ever spake." General William S. 
Cabell, of Danville, telling of an attempt on Randolph's 
part to adequately indicate what he thought of Henry, 
says: 

" Randolph suddenly paused, and picking up a piece of 
charcoal from the hearth, and pointing to the white wall, 
said : ' But it is in vain for me to attempt to describe the oratory 
of that wonderful man. Sir, it would be as vain for me to 
try, with this black coal, to paint correctly the brilliant flash 
of the vivid lightning, or to attempt, with my feeble voice, 
to echo the thunder, as to convey, by any power I possess, a 
proper idea of the eloquence of Patrick Henry ! ' " 

When the Rev. Dr. Archibald Alexander, of Prince- 
ton Theological Seminary, was a young man, he went 
out of his way to study Henry's methods as a speaker. 
" The power of his eloquence was felt equally by the 
learned and unlearned," wrote Alexander, in the Prince- 
ton Review; hence the wish of the beginner in oratory 
to profit by a lesson from the lips of the master. Being 
in Prince Edward County, and learning that Henry was 
to appear before the Circuit Court In defence of three 
men charged with murder, the aspirant for pulpit power 
sat all day In the court-room, awaiting an exhibition 
of Henry's eloquence. But the day was spent In the 
examination of witnesses. Alexander says : 

" Mr. Henry . . . wore a brown wig, which exhibited 
no indication of any great care in the dressing. Over his 
shoulders he wore a brown cloak. Under this his clothing 

382 



AS A LAWYER 

was black, something the worse for wear. The expression 
of his countenance was that of solemnity and deep earnestness. 
His mind appeared to be always absorbed in what, for the 
time, occupied his attention. His forehead was high and 
spacious, and the skin of his face more than usually wrinkled 
for a man of fifty. His eyes were small and deeply set in his 
head, but were of a bright blue color, and twinkled much 
in their sockets. . In short, Mr. Henry's appearance had nothing 
very remarkable as he sat at rest. You might readily have 
taken him for a common planter who cared very little about 
his personal appearance. In his manners he was uniformly 
respectful and courteous, 

" Candles were brought into the court-house when the ex- 
amination of witnesses closed; and the Judges put it to the 
option of the bar whether they would go on with the argument 
that night or adjourn until the next day. Paul Carrington, Jr., 
the attorney for the State, a man of large size and uncommon 
dignity of person and manner, as also an accomplished lawyer, 
professed his willingness to proceed immediately, while the 
testimony was fresh in the minds of all. Now for the first 
time I heard Mr. Henry make anything of a speech, and though 
it was short, it satisfied me of one thing, which I had particu- 
larly desired to have decided ; namely, whether like a player 
he merely assumed the appearance of feeling. His manner 
of addressing the Court was profoundly respectful. He would 
be willing to proceed with the trial, but, said he : ' My heart 
is so oppressed with the weight of responsibility which rests 
upon me, having the lives of three fellow-citizens depending, 
probably, on the exertion which I may be able to make in 
their behalf (here he turned to the prisoners behind him), that 
I do not feel able to proceed to-night. I hope the Court will 
indulge me, and postpone the trial till morning.' The impres- 
sion made by these few words was such as I assure myself no 
one can ever conceive by seeing them in print. In the counte- 
nance, action, and intonation of the speaker there was expressed 
such an intensity of feeling that all my doubts were dispelled; 
never again did I question whether Henry felt, or only acted 
a feeling. Indeed, I experienced an instantaneous sympathy 
with him in the emotions which he expressed ; and I have no 
doubt the same sympathy was felt by every hearer." 

We continue the account, quotlnisf in extenso, because 
we certainly have the real Henry before us : 

383 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

" As a matter of course, the proceedings were deferred un- 
til the next morning. I was early at my post; the Judges were 
soon on the bench, and the prisoners at the bar. Mr. Carring- 
ton, afterwards Judge Carrington, opened with a clear and 
dignified speech, and presented the evidence to the jury. Every- 
thing seemed perfectly plain. Two brothers and a brother-in- 
law met two other persons in pursuit of a slave, supposed to 
be harbored by the brothers. After some altercation and 
mutual abuse, one of the brothers, whose name was John Ford, 
raised a loaded gun which he was carrying, and, presenting 
it to the breast of one of the other pair, shot him dead in open 
day. There was no doubt about the fact. Indeed, it was not 
denied. There had been no other provocation than opprobrious 
words. It is presumed that the opinion of every juror was 
made up from merely hearing the testimonj'^ ; as Tom Harvey, 
the principal witness, who was acting as constable on the 
occasion, appeared to be a respectable man. For the clearer 
understanding of what follows, it must be observed that the 
said constable, in order to distinguish him from another of 
the name, was commonly called * Butterwood Harvey,' as he 
lived on Butterwood Creek. . . . Henry's main object appeared 
to be throughout to cast discredit on the testimony of Tom 
Harvey. . . . 

" As he descanted on the evidence, he would often turn to 
Tom Harvey — a large, bold-looking man — and with the most 
sarcastic look would call him by some name of contempt : 
' this Butterwood Tom Harvey,' ' this would-be constable,' 
etc. By such expressions, his contempt for the man was com- 
municated to the hearers. I own I felt it gaining on me in 
spite of my better judgment; so that, before he was done, 
the impression was strong on my mind that Butterwood Harvey 
was undeserving the smallest credit. This impression, how- 
ever, I found I could counteract, the m^oment I had time for 
reflection. The only part of the speech in which he manifested 
his power of touching the feelings strongly was where he dwelt 
on the irruption of the company into Ford's house, in circum- 
stances so perilous to the solitary wife. This appeal to the 
sensibility of husbands — and he knew that all the jury stood 
in this relation — was overwhelming. If the verdict could have 
been rendered after this burst of the pathetic, every man, at 
least every husband in the house, would have been for rejecting 
Harvey's testimony, if not for hanging him forthwith. It was 
fortunate that the illusion of such eloquence is transient, and 
is soon dissipated by the exercise of sober reason. I confess, 

384 



AS A LAWYER 

however, that nothing which I then heard so convinced me 
of the advocate's power as the speech of five minutes, which 
he made when he requested that the trial might be postponed 
till the next day." 

William Wirt Henry supplements Dr. Alexander's 
account, which leaves us uncertain as to the result of 
the trial. Ford was acquitted. Juror Halloway used to 
declare that the terrible Patrick '' scared him out of his 
wits, and made him believe that if he hung Ford he 
would have to answer for it at the judgment day." But 
Dr. Alexander's study of Henry was not for the purpose 
of chronicling the minutiae of the advocate's work at the 
bar. Something more important was in mind. Just as 
zealous aspirants for literary fame read Ruskin and 
Newman to waylay the elusive sprites that guard numer- 
ous secrets of style, so this aspiring pulpit orator sought 
to analyze and adapt the excellences of Henry. Here 
is the outcome of the study, which was made at various 
times and in various places : 

" The power of Henry's eloquence was due, first, to the 
greatness of his emotion and passion, accompanied with a 
versatility which enabled him to assume at once any emotion 
or passion which was suited to his ends. Not less indispen- 
sable, secondly, was a matchless perfection of the organs of 
expression, including the entire apparatus of voice, intonation, 
pause, gesture, attitude, and indescribable display of countenance. 
In no instance did he ever indulge in an expression that was 
not instantly recognized as nature itself ; yet some of his 
penetrating and subduing tones were absolutely peculiar, and as 
inimitable as they were indescribable. These were felt by every 
hearer, in all their force. His mightiest feelings were some- 
times indicated and communicated by a long pause, aided by 
an eloquent aspect and some significant use of the finger. 

" The sympathy between mind and mind is inexplicable. 
Where the channels of communication are open, the faculty 
of revealing inward passion great, and the expression of it 
sudden and visible, the effects of it are extraordinary. Let 
these shocks of influence be repeated again and again, and 

25 385 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

all other opinions and ideas are for the moment absorbed or 
excluded; the whole mind is brought into unison with that of 
the speaker, and the spell-bound listener, till the cause ceases, 
is under an entire fascination. 

" Patrick Henry, of course, owed much to his singular in- 
sight into the feelings of the common mind. In great cases, 
he scanned his jury and formed his mental estimate; on this 
basis he founded his appeals to their predilections and charac- 
ter. It is what other advocates do in a lesser degree. When 
he knew that there were conscientious or religious men among 
the jury, he would most solemnly address himself to their sense 
of right, and would adroitly bring in Scriptural citations. If 
this handle were not offered, he would lay bare the sensibility 
of patriotism. Thus it was when he succeeded in rescuing the 
man who had deliberately shot down a neighbor who lay under 
the odious suspicion of being a Tory, and who was proved to 
have refused supplies to a brigade of the American army." 

But though Henry left his mark upon numerous 
cases — some great, some small — there are two that stand 
notably out from the others : the Parsons' Cause of his 
youth, and the judicial affair of magnitude to which 
we have now come. This is known as the British Debt 
Cause. Wirt, who devotes fifty of the four hundred 
and sixty-seven pages of his book to Henry's argument 
(thus violating all sense of biographical proportion), 
says that " the whole power of the bar of Virginia was 
embarked " in the case. He tells us that " the deep 
interest of the question, in a national point of view, and 
the manner in which it involved more particularly the 
honor of the State of Virginia, and the fortunes of her 
citizens, had excited Mr. Henry to a degree of prepara- 
tion which he had never before made." Howe says: 
" He shut himself up in his of^ce for three days, during 
which he did not see his family ; his food was handed by 
a servant through the ofifice door." According to the 
Edward Fontaine manuscript, Patrick Henry Fontaine, 
then studying law with his grandfather, rode sixty miles 
to get a copy of Vattel's "Law of Nations," Henry 

386 







I 



AS A LAWYER 

made many quotations from Vattel, and '' with the whole 
syllabus of notes and heads of arguments he filled a 
manuscript volume more tlian an inch thick and closely 
written." It was " bound with leather, and convenient 
for carrying in his pocket." We learn further that there 
was an office in the yard, " built at some distance from 
his dwelling, and an avenue of fine black locusts shaded 
a walk in front of it. . . . He usually walked and 
meditated, when the weather permitted, in this shaded 
avenue. . . . For several days in succession, before 
his departure to Richmond to attend the court," he 
haunted the locust walk, sometimes reading from his 
note-book, and sometimes disclosing by his gestures 
that he was rehearsing his argument. Wirt declares 
that '* he came forth a perfect master of every principle 
of law, national and municipal, which touched the sub- 
ject of investigation in the most distant point." 

Let us go back a step, in order that we may the more 
readily go forward, and thus cover the whole matter 
at a few strides. By the treaty of 1783, America agreed 
that British debts should be recoverable here. Under 
the Constitution, that treaty became the supreme law 
of the land. But on October 20, 1777, Virginia, acting 
as a sovereign State, had directed that money due to 
British subjects should be paid into her treasury. On 
May 3, 1779, the Legislature passed an act of forfeiture, 
vesting all British property in the Commonwealth. 
These laws had been made prior to the making of either 
the treaty or the Constitution. 

Now, when the United States Court was opened at 
Richmond, in 1790, many British creditors sued to re- 
cover debts that had already been paid to the State. 
The debtors jointly engaged Henry, Marshall, James 
Innes, and Alexander Campbell, a cousin of the poet, 
to defend them. The counsel on the other side were 
Ronald, Baker, Starke, and John Wickham, all able 

387 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

men. Wickham, especially, was of high repute. John- 
son and Blair of the Supreme Court and Griffin of the 
District Court were the judges. 

Henry qualified in the Federal Circuit Court on the 
23d of November, 1791 ; and that same day the first of 
the British Debt cases was called. It led the docket, 
and was to be a test case. William Jones, British mer- 
chant, sued Dr. Thomas Walker, of Albemarle County, 
on a bond dated May 11, 1772. On the 24th, Ronald 
and Baker opened for the plaintiff. On the morning of 
the 25th, Henry began his great argument, which in the 
main was taken down in short-hand by David Robertson. 
We now follow Wirt : 

"The Legislature was then in session; but when 11 o'clock, 
the hour for the meeting of the Court, arrived, the Speaker 
found himself without a House to do business. All his author- 
ity and that of his sergeant-at-arms were unavailing to keep 
the members in their seats. . . . Accordingly, when the 
Court was ready to proceed to business, the court-room of 
the Capitol, large as it is, was insufficient to contain the vast 
concourse that was pressing to enter it. The portico, and the 
area in which the statue of Washington stands, were filled 
with a disappointed crowd, who nevertheless maintained their 
stand without. ... It may give the reader some idea of 
the amplitude of this argument when he is told that Mr. 
Henry was engaged three days successively in its delivery ; and 
some faint conception of the enchantment which he threw 
over it, when he learns that although it turned entirely on 
questions of law, yet the audience, mixed as it was, seemed 
so far from being wearied that they followed him throughout 
with increased enjoyment. The room continued full to the 
last ; and such was ' the listening silence ' with which he was 
heard, that not a syllable that he uttered is believed to have ♦ 
been lost. When he finally sat down, the concourse rose with 
a general murmur of admiration ; the scene resembled the 
breaking up and dispersion of a great theatrical assembly which 
had been enjoying for the first time the exhibition of some 
new and splendid drama ; the Speaker of the House of Dele- 
gates was at length able to command a quorum for business ; 
and every quarter of the city, and, at length, every part of the 

388 



AS A LAWYER 

State, was filled with the echoes of Mr. Henry's eloquent 
speech." 

In brief, Henry claimed that, by the law of nations, 
contracts between the people of belligerent countries 
are void ; that, under the strain of a life-and-death 
struggle, the debts were justly confiscated ; that, as for 
the treaty, Great Britain had broken it in more ways 
than one ; and, finally, that the splitting asunder of the 
two countries by the Revolution had annulled a thou- 
sand things of greater human importance than a few 
pounds and shillings. 

During the debate, Ronald, who was a Scotchman, 
let slip a reference to Virginia as a " revolted " colony. 
" When Mr. Henry," says Wirt, " came to notice this 
remark, he gave his spectacles the war emit: ' But an- 
other observation,' said he, ' was made : that by the law 
of nations we had not a right to legislate on the subject 
of British debts — we were not an independent nation — 
and I thought,' said he, raising himself aloft, while 
his frame dilated beyond the ordinary size, ' that I heard 
the word revolt!' At this word he turned upon Mr. 
Ronald his piercing eye, and knit his brows at him, with 
an expression of indignation and contempt which seemed 
almost to annihilate him. It was like a stroke of light- 
ning." Ronald seemed, indeed, to be *' in quest of an 
auger-hole by which he might drop through the floor." 
Henry '' perceived his sufferings, and his usual good 
nature immediately returned to him. He raised his 
eyes gently toward the Court, and shaking his head 
slowly, with an expression of regret, added : ' I wish I 
had not heard it: for though innocently meant (and 
I am sure it was so, from the character of the gentleman 
who mentioned it), yet the sound displeases me — it is 
unpleasant.' Mr. Ronald breathed again, and looked 
up, and his generous adversary dismissed the topic to 
resume it no more." 

389 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

In the fall of 1792 the same court heard a discussion 
" upon the law involved in the pleadings " ; and in the 
spring of 1793 there was further argument — this time 
before Chief-Justice Jay and Associate Justice Iredell 
of the United States Supreme Court, sitting with Judge 
Griffin of the District Court. James Iredell, of North 
Carolina, a great jurist and one of the strong men of his 
time (whose *' Life " by G. J. McRee is a true lamp of 
Revolutionary history), wrote to his wife on May 2^ \ 
" We began on the British causes the second day of 
the Court, and are now in the midst of them. The great 
Patrick Henry is to speak to-day." 

How Henry impressed Iredell was thus noted in a 
letter from James W. Bouldin to Colonel John Henry, 
of Red Hill: 

" John Randolph of Roanoke told me of his having when 
a youth been present at the trial of the case of the British 
debts. He said by luck or favor he had got himself seated near 
the Judges, so that he could hear a whisper between them. A 
dispute sprang up between them whether Henry was an orator. 
The Associate Judge [Iredell] asserted that he was no orator, 
though he had never heard him speak — that he was a mere ad 
captandum speaker. The Chief-Justice insisted that he was the 
greatest of orators. John Marshall, afterwards Chief-Justice 
. . . opened, and was speaking. The dispute was so severe 
between the Judges that they determined to call on Mr. Henry 
next, although they knew he was reserved to the last. When 
Marshall finished . . . they called on Mr. Henry. Henry 
was very much wrapped up, was old, and his head resting on the 
bar. He raised his head with unaffected surprise, and said that 
that was not the order in which they had proposed to speak. 
There were several of counsel. . . . The Court still in- 
sisting, Henry began to resign himself to it, and prepared to 
rise. Randolph said he knew that Henry was the ablest counsel 
and mainly relied on. Yet ' his deceit was deeper than the 
bottom of the sea' — his (Henry's) oratorical put-on, he meant; 
and when Henry began to complain, before he had fairly risen 
from his seat, that it was a hardship too great to place the labor- 
ing oar in the hands of a decrepit old man, trembling with one 

390 



AS A LAWYER 

foot in the grave, weak in his best days, and far inferior to the 
able associate by him, he (Randolph) knew 'it was all deceit.' 
. . . He now reminded Randolph of a first-rate four-mile 
race-horse, sometimes displaying his whole power and speed 
for a few leaps, and then taking up again. Here the color 
would come and go in the face of the Chief-Justice, while 
the Associate Justice sat with eyes stretched open in perfect 
wonder. At last Henry arrived at his utmost height and 
grandeur. He raised his hands in one of those grand, solemn 
pauses. Randolph said his hands seemed to cover the whole 
house. There was a general suppressed expression of applause. 
Then the Associate Justice cried out : ' Gracious God ! He is 
an orator indeed ! ' " 

Iredell subsequently wrote of the arguments : " They 
have discovered an ingenuity, a depth of investigation, 
and a power of reasoning fully equal to anything I have 
ever witnessed, and some of them have been adorned 
with a splendor of eloquence surpassing what I ever 
felt before. Fatigue has given way under its influence, 
and the heart has been warmed, while the understanding 
has been instructed." 

William Wirt Henry thus follows the case to its end : 

" The decision of the Court upon the pleadings left nothing 
for the jury to try except the plea of payment. Upon this 
issue the jury was impanelled at once, and argument was 
heard, but they could not agree upon a verdict. Nor was one 
obtained until the May term. 1794, when Mr. Henry was not 
present. By the pleadings, the defendants had been allowed 
credit for the sums they had paid into the State treasury. From 
this, Ware [administrator of Jones] appealed to the Supreme 
Court, where the case was heard after Mr. Henry had left 
the bar. That Court reversed the Circuit Court, and held the 
debtors liable for their original obligations, on the ground 
that the treaty, being the supreme law under the Constitution, 
annulled the acts of Virginia, though she might have been 
sovereign when they were passed." 

And so, with a triumph, Henry passed out of the 
courts as he had passed out of the public councils. He 

391 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

deemed himself entitled to some peace and rest. He had 
injured his voice in the British Debt case ; which was 
but one of many warnings that his day of great activity 
had gone. We learn from Howe that, in the course of 
the arguments before the Supreme Court judges, the 
Countess of Huntingdon, then in this country, was 
among the auditors. She said of Henry and the others 
that if they had spoken thus in Westminster Hall, " they 
would have been honored with a peerage." '' Mr. 
Henry," continues Howe, " had a diamond ring on his 
finger; and while he was speaking, the Countess ex- 
claimed to the Judge, Iredell : * The diamond is 
blazing!' " 

And so, doubtless, it will continue to blaze ; for 
Henry's fame as an orator will last through the cen- 
turies. 



392 



XVII 



RED HILL 



With enough of that honor which comes to one who 
acts well his part ; with friends enough, and no real 
enemies ; with land and money enough, but, as he seems 
to have thought, not quite enough children — Henry 
turned his back upon the world, and entered the beauti- 
ful wilderness that stretched eastward from the Peaks 
of Otter. A few Indians were still there, and many 
bears. High hills, free-flowing streams, and fertile 
lowlands made it an inviting region for Henry, who 
now lacked nothing but health. Here he hoped to get 
back his health ; here he would rest ; here he would play 
patriarch, and prolong his life. 

It is a Randolph, as well as a Henry, region — this 
bold country along the Staunton River. The Otter 
comes out from among the Peaks, and feeds the Staun- 
ton ; the Staunton feeds the Dan ; the Dan the Roanoke. 
It is said that John Randolph spent a night on one of 
the Peaks that he might seek in the sunrise sure evi- 
dence of the existence of God. He went up the moun- 
tain in pride, and came down in humility. Whether 
Satan sat beside him on the rock of his vigil that night, 
we can only imagine, but we feel that he was lucky to 
escape the rattlesnakes. His head was surcharged with 
Shakespeare — a complaint that was common in the 
generation succeeding Henry's, and that is exceedingly 
rare in ours. No doubt he thought dark, Byronic things 
on his perch among the Peaks. No doubt he gave 
" Hamlet " to the stars, and " Macbeth " and the other 
pieces. If, after sunrise, he chanced to look eastward 
through his spy-glass, he saw the quarter of his own 

393 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

far-away forest hermitage ; and if he focused upon the 
nearer spot where the Otter joins the Staunton, he 
was viewing the Patrick Henry neighborhood. 

Not far from the confluence of these two rivers was 
Long Island, the earUest of Henry's Staunton Valley 
homes. Red Hill, the real home, was eighteen miles 
down stream, near the head of bateau navigation to 
the sea. Here, after receiving the waters of the Fall- 
ing River, which wash the western side of Red Hill, 
the Staunton quits its eastward course, elbows south, 
and speeds away for the Carolina line. Here, on Red 
Hi^l, the counties of Campbell and Charlotte meet ; and 
the crow that flies over stream from either is soon 
eating corn in Halifax. Thirty-eight miles to the north- 
west is Lynchburg; some thirty to the north is Appo- 
mattox. The sound of the guns there reached Red Hill, 
but though Henry had once been profoundly interested 
in the matter at issue, he slept on. After Appomattox, 
a native remarked to a Union officer, an excellent but 
uninformed man, who was guarding a plantation : 
" This is Patrick Henry's country around here." " So 
I've heard say," replied the officer ; " he must be ' some 
pumpkins ' ; where does he live, anyhow ? " * 

For a time Henry kept up two residences, going from 
Long Island to Red Hill and back again whenever he 
wished. As we have seen, he was in search of health 
and comfort ; and doubtless he sought physic in wood- 

* In Powhatan Bouldin's little book, " The Old Trunk, or 
Sketches of Colonial Days," one finds interesting reminiscences 
of the Red Hill region. When Louis Tyler lived at " Red Hill 
in Charlotte," he had as a servant a white redemptioner, 
" an upright woman of great fidelity," Milly Collins. " One 
night, as Mrs. Tyler was preparing to retire to bed, she, as 
usual, requested Milly to pull off her stockings. * Everybody 
pulls off their own stockings to-night ! ' was the reply. Pretty 
bold for her ; but the hour of her deliverance had come, and 
she meant to assert her rights that very instant." 

394 



RED HILL 

land sport. Judge Roane intimates that Henry had 
lost all liking for rod and gim ; but that was when he 
was on the circuit and working hard. Now he was 
free, and local tradition has it that he renewed his 
interest in the chase. In these days of his retirement, 
he was as fond of nature as he had ever been. He 
was no Puritan, be it noted, but a religious man of 
affairs, and he saw the utility and the joy of rural pas- 
times. Like John Randolph, Patrick Henry's son Win- 
ston kept race-horses on his Staunton River estate. 
Dr. Thomas Yuille Henry, son of Winston, made a 
name for himself in the hunting field. Fox-hounds are 
closely identified with the Henry family, and there is 
a breed of them bearing the name. That Patrick 
Henry himself " did pursue the timid hare, and fox 
that lives by subtilty," we may well believe without 
stretching our imagination beyond the limit. By the 
Staunton there still dwells a half-breed Indian woman 
who remembers tales told by her father of the days when 
he hunted with Patrick Henry. Long Island is in foot- 
touch with Red Hill, and the plantation hands fre- 
quently passed to and fro between them. One of these, 
" L^ncle Big Solomon," while walking to Long Island 
by night, met a bear at a fence near the ford. Mis- 
taking the bear for a man, *' Uncle Big Solomon " pro- 
ceeded to scuffle with him ; and, says tradition, " the 
best man got over the fence last." 

Several of Henry's letters are dated at Long Island, 
Campbell County, which county, by the by, was named 
in honor of his brother-in-law, General William Camp- 
bell ; others bear the date, " Red Hill, Charlotte County." 
One of these letters shows that Henry was living at 
Long Island as early as October 26, 1793. It is to his 
daughter, " Betsy " Aylett, who dwelt in King Wil- 
liam. There is that in the letter which brings us close 
to the writer, who says : 

395 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

" Yours by Mr. Roane's man I received, and I have the 
satisfaction to inform you we are well, except Johnny Chris- 
tian and Patrick, and they are recovering fast now. Poor 
Neddy has been at the point of death at Colonel Meredith's. 
Your sister Fountaine and Dolly have been with him for some 
time. He v/as mended a little when we last heard from him, 
and there were hopes of his living — and I trust he mends, 
or we should have heard before this. I should have gone to 
him, but had a pain in my hip. The flux has been very near 
us, but, it has pleased God, we escaped it. Many died of 
it, and the whole country hereabouts has been sickly. Your 
mama and myself are greatly obliged by your affection to 
Dolly, and I send a guinea by your sister Roane to pay for 
some small articles she had from a store at Aylett's, which she 
says were twenty odd shillings. Your sister Roane can tell 
you the little news of this family. We shall go to Red Hill, 
i8 miles below this, in a few days, to spend eight months, but 
spend the sickly season here. ... I pray God to keep and 
preserve you, my dear child." 

In the autumn of 1794 he writes to " Betsy " : 

" I have great cause of thankfulness for the health I enjoy, 
and for that of your mama and all the children. For not one 
of us has been sick for a long time. Our working negroes 
on the river are indeed very sickly with the ague. However, 
it is not of an inveterate kind. We have providentially escaped 
the flux as yet, whilst many around us have died of it. I 
wish you were here to enjoy the agreeable society of your 
sisters at this place, which is very retired ; indeed, so much so as 
to disgust Sally and Dolly. But as we go to Red Hill in 
August for five weeks, they will be relieved from this solitude, 
as that is a more public place. . . . We have another son, 
named Winston. I must give out the law, and plague myself 
no more with business, sitting down with what I have. For 
it will be sufficient employment to see after my little flock, and 
the management of my plantation." 

However much Henry liked Long Island, he liked 
Red Hill better. He said to '' Jack White," a favorite 
servant, that in finding- Red Hill he had found " one of 
the garden spots of the world." Thus it came that in 
1796 he fixed his residence at Red Hill, leaving the 
Long Island plantation in charge of an agent. And 

396 



'^m^^ 




RED HILL 

since Red Hill was his last home, becoming more inti- 
mately associated with his name than any other place, 
it behooves us to draw near and look minutely upon 
this particular '' garden spot " which rejoiced him so. 
As with other pilgrims, we approach from the north, 
by the Brookneal road, which leads through woods 
rich in all sorts of oak, hickory, ash, chestnut, poplar, 
and pine, and brings us finally to the far-extending 
Red Hill open. We are on the backbone of a broad 
ridge, with pasture fields to the west and a tobacco 
field sloping eastward. On ahead are the houses. They 
are at the nib of the ridge — barn, cabins, agent's dwell- 
ing, and Red Hill house itself; not close together, but 
picturesquely placed, for there is no lack of room here. 
Originally the tract was of two thousand acres.* As 
we move on, we note that there are all sorts of pretty 
little hillocks tumbled slopewise about on top of the 
big hill. We say to ourselves that if it were to rain 
hard, little streams of water would soon be running 
to all points of the compass at one and the same moment. 
Some would hurry to Falling River, in the rocky trough 
just to the west ; some would flow eastward into a 
lesser stream. Such is the variety of contour ; such are 
the gentle dips and curves and graceful sweeps of the 
land at Red Hill, which was so named because of the 
red-brown soil outcropping at its southern end. To 
boatmen coming up the Staunton, in the old days, this 
southern end looked like a red bluff ; but it is a brown 
hill, a white hill, or a gloriously green hill, according 
to the season. Thinking of Patrick Henry's choice 
of a home — his " garden spot " of the world — we find 
one of his chief characteristics, hitherto shadowy to 
us, now relieved of shadows. We see clearly that the 

* The Red Hill tract contained 2920 acres ; the Long Island 
tract 3522 acres. Two other tracts, in Campbell County, were 
owned by Henry — one of 1030 acres, the other of 444 acres. 
Henry paid taxes on 8000 acres of Norfolk lands. 

397 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

man had the artistic temperament. He was musical; 
we recall his flute and violin. He was an actor; no 
one has ever thought otherwise. In a sense, he was 
an artist ; we understand now why many of his descend- 
ants developed aesthetic qualities. Certainly, his eye 
must have had satisfaction of pastoral scenery here. 
What is called " quiet beauty," '' restful beauty," is 
round about; and one finds himself listening for the 
tinkle of sheep-bells. The mind goes back to poems 
read and stories told of pastoral England, and this 
seems a part of it, somehow, or, at any rate, a part of 
some place, somewhere, connected with pleasant memo- 
ries or happy dreams. 

Patrick Henry's house faces south. It stands on 
the crest of the hill, at the right spot for the longest 
and best view down the valley of the Staunton. In a 
shaded yard back of the house was his office; to the 
east is the spacious garden; east of that is the grave- 
yard, walled about with box-tree hedge and carpeted 
with periwinkle. Box-tree hedge beautifies the lawn, 
from the foot of which the hillside slopes a long way 
down to the Staunton lowland, where there are great 
flat fields given over to corn. There are eight con- 
siderable springs, one with a touch of lithia, round about 
the place. The ravines, with their whitewashed log 
cabins, are romantic, and at the heads of these ravines 
are the springs. " Cool Spring " was Henry's favorite. 
From this, water was brought to him on a summer 
day; and with a can of it and a gourd he sat under a 
locust tree on the lawn, and enjoyed the valley view. 

Looking as with Henry's own eyes, we have a pros- 
pect dov/n across miles of com to the far-away hills 
of Halifax. The whole basin, which is oval in shape, 
is rimmed about with hills. At the furthermost rim, 
where the river runs In rapids, breaking through the 
hills, is a wooded eminence called Hawk's Mountain, 

598 



RED HILL 

three miles away. All the space between is as a pano- 
rama where clouds and hills and sweeps of corn play 
shadow-games, shifting their pictures constantly, prodi- 
gal of them, indeed — giving to some thief of a crow 
that happens to fly by so glorious a setting that an artist 
would be willing to lay aside his brush for good, if 
he could only paint it as it is. 

'' From the brow of the hill, west of the house," 
wrote Howe, who visited it sixty years ago, " is a scene 
of an entirely different character ; the Blue Ridge, with 
the lofty Peaks of Otter, appears in the horizon at a 
distance of nearly sixty miles." The print used by 
Howe in his *' Historical Collections " shows a two- 
story frame dwelling connected at the eastern end w4th 
a snug story-and-a-half colonial structure. The two- 
story part was added after Henry's death. It is the 
smaller building that was his. He himself made but one 
addition — a shed at the garden end ; and this was built, 
not so much because he needed more room for his still 
growing family — John, who inherited R-^ed Hill, and 
Jean Robertson were born here — as because he " wished 
to hear the patter of rain on its roof." We are assured 
by Elizabeth Henry Lyons that " Red Hill has suffered 
less change than any other historic home in Virginia. 
The house, a wooden structure, is in an excellent state 
of preservation. It is composite in its nature, an addi- 
tion having been made to it by John Henry, to whom 
it passed on the death of his mother. The box-hedges 
which mark the walks and driveways, and the old- 
fashioned garden with flowering shrubs, give the place 
a distinct flavor of ante-bellum days. The wood-work 
inside the house is very simple. Tall mantels and brass 
locks show its colonial character." * 

* Mrs. Lucy Gray Harrison and Mrs. Elizabeth Henry Lyons, 
daughters of William Wirt Henry, are the present owners of 
Red Hill. Mrs. Harrison is the widow of Matthew Bland 

399 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Henry's life at Red Hill was just the sort of life 
that world-badgered men everywhere sigh to lead. We 
know that Washington so sighed about this time. It 
might be described as idyllic, if it were not that the 
word conveys too florid a meaning. It might be desig- 
nated as a patriarchal life, if it were not for the fact 
that the cradles were still rocking at Red Hill. It was 
indeed patriarchal in the sense that Henry was looking 
after his people, his flocks, his fields. But his varied 
affairs were not all under his immediate eye. In going 
over the private papers preserved at Red Hill, one is 
impressed with his business activity. He touched life 
at many points. There are drawerfuls of receipts, 
accounts, business letters, documents relating to sur- 
veys and the like — all showing how careful he was, and 
that his days at Red Hill could not have been without 
care. Howe says : " Occasionally he walked to and 
fro in the yard from one clump of trees to the other, 
buried in revery, at which times he was never inter- 
rupted." It may be that he was thinking of the great 
trouble President Washington was having; or it is 
possible that certain land investments were about to 
prove profitless. He lost his share in a Georgia tract 
by reason of the McGillivray treaty between the United 
States and the Creeks, and was a victim — not a bene- 
ficiary, as has been foolishly said — of the Yazoo Fraud 

of 1 795-* 

Harrison, the upbuilder of Duliith, Minn. Mrs. Lyons is the 
wife of Colonel James Lyons, great-grandson of Judge Peter 
Lyons, Patrick Henry's opponent in the " Parsons' Cause." 
As remodelled on colonial lines — the old preserved, the new 
subdued — the present house fits the hill-top, graces it, and 
becomes the ornament of the historic plantation. Like Mount 
Vernon, it is a Mecca for all who love the founders of the 
Republic. Red Hill garden has been stocked with shrubs 
from Mount Vernon garden. 

* Jefferson wrote, in the " Memorandum," thrown out by 

400 



RED HILL 

But in the main, as he told '' Jack White," he was 
" getting things ready for his children." He bought 
farms for his older sons, and helped his married daugh- 

Wirt and first published in 1867 : " About the close of the war 
he [Patrick Henry] engaged in the Yazoo speculation, and 
bought up a great deal of depreciated paper at 2s., and 2s. 6d., 
in the pound to pay for it. At the close of the war many of 
us wished to reopen all accounts which had been paid in 
depreciated money, and have them settled by the scale of 
depreciation. But on this he frowned most indignantly, and, 
knowing the general indisposition of the Legislature, it was 
considered hopeless to attempt it with such an opponent at 
their head as Henry. . . . From being the most violent of 
the Anti-Federalists, however, he was brought over to the new 
Constitution by his Yazoo speculation, before mentioned. The 
Georgia Legislature having declared that transaction fraudu- 
lent and void, the depreciated paper which he had bought up 
to pay for the Yazoo purchase was likely to remain on his 
hands worth nothing. But Hamilton's funding system came 
most opportunely to his relief, and suddenly raised his paper 
from 2s. 6d. to 27s. 6d. the pound. Hamilton became now his 
idol." Commenting on this, William Wirt Henry says : " The 
facts are simply as follows : On the 7th of February, 1795, 
the Georgia Legislature passed an act selling to four companies, 
viz. : the Georgia, the Georgia and Mississippi, the Upper 
Mississippi, and the Tennessee — about forty million acres of 
land for the sum of $500,000. These companies paid the money, 
and obtained the deeds to the land. It soon became known, 
however, that the Legislature had been bribed, and the suc- 
ceeding Legislature, on the 30th of January, 1796, declared the 
grant fraudulent and void. This transaction became infamous, 
and was known as the Yazoo speculation ; and it is with this 
that Mr. Jefferson evidently intends to connect Mr. Henry. 
I find from Mr. Henry's private papers that late in the year 
1789, he, with Judge Paul Carrington, Joel Watkins, Francis 
Watkins, and some half dozen other gentlemen — all of high 
character — entered into a co-partnership, which they called 
the Virginia Yazoo Company, having for their object the 
purchase of Georgia lands. In 1789 the Georgia Legislature 
passed an act to sell to the South Carolina, the Virginia Yazoo, 
and the Tennessee Companies a portion of her territory. But 
refusing to take Georgia certificates in payment, and requiring 

26 401 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

ters. There were some weddings at Red Hill ; for the 
daughters by his second marriage were now growing 
up. The eldest, Dorothea Spotswood, a beauty, became 
the wife of her cousin, George D. Winston. Her por- 
trait by James Sharpies is much prized. Dorothea's 
sister, Martha Catharine, then seventeen, fell over- 
board while visiting the Henrys, distant kinsmen on the 
Eastern Shore of Virginia, and romantically married her 
rescuer, Edward W. Henry, a son of Judge James 
Henry of the Court of Appeals. Sarah married Robert 
Campbell, of Charlotte Court-house. Robert's brother, 
Thomas Campbell, the famous poet, was under engage- 
ment to come to Red Hill as tutor, but was overruled 
at home, and never crossed the sea. 

Henry himself sometimes played school-master. This 
we learn from William Wirt Henry, who had from his 
Aunt Sarah an interesting detail respecting Patrick 
Henry's family customs. It was his habit, said she, to 
seat himself in his dining-room every morning, directly 
after rising, and read his Bible, and as his children 
would pass him for the first time, he would raise his 
eyes from his book and greet them with a " good 

specie instead, the companies could not pay for the land, and 
their rights were afterwards declared forfeited. No improper 
conduct can be charged on the Virginia Yazoo Company in this 
transaction. They paid no money and got no land. . . . 
I have never seen the slightest evidence that Mr. Henry was 
connected with any other company, nor am I aware that this 
was ever charged." John Randolph, the bitterest foe of the 
actual promoters of the Yazoo Frauds, said of Colonel Joel 
Watkins, one of the Virginia Company : " Under the guidance 
of old-fashioned honesty and practical good sense he accu- 
mulated an ample fortune, in which it is firmly believed by 
all who knew him there was not a dirty shilling." Watkins, 
be it noted, was Henry's partner. As for the funding act. it 
had nothing to do with the matter. This act had been in opera- 
tion six years before the frauds developed. Jefiferson mixes 
his dates. Nor did Henry idolize Hamilton, or any other man. 

402 




DOROTHEA SPOTSWOOD, WIFE OF NATHANIEL WEST DANDRIDGE 

(A true Colonial dame. Henry married her daughter. From a painting 
owned by Mrs. I. N. Jones, of Richmond.) 



RED HILL 

morrow." And this he would never neglect. Henry's 
fondness for the Bible grew with his years. " This 
book," said he to a neighbor, " is worth all the books 
that ever were printed, and it has been my misfortune 
that I never found time to read it with the proper 
attention and feeling till lately. I trust in the mercy 
of Heaven that it is not yet too late." 

Henry's Bible readings must have had a great many 
interruptions, if this account of his life, from " Homes 
of American Statesmen," be exact — and we have no 
reason to doubt it: 

" His house was usually filled with friends, its dependencies 
with their retinue and horses. But crowds, besides, came and 
went ; all were received and entertained with cordiality. . . . 
All took his counsel as if it had been an oracle. . . . Those 
who lived near always came to breakfast, where all were 
welcomed and made full. The larder never seemed to get 
lean. Breakfast over, creature comforts, such as might console 
the belated for its loss, were presently set forth on side- 
tables in the wide entrance-hall. Of these — the solid, not the 
liquid parts of a rural morning's meal — breakfast without its 
slops, and such as, if need were, might well sta for a 
dinner, all further comers helped themselves as the day or 
their appetites advanced. Meanwhile, the master saw and 
Avelcomed all with the kindliest attention, asked of their 
household, listened to their affairs, gave them his view, con- 
tented all. These audiences • seldom ceased before noon, or 
the early dinner. To this a remaining party of from twenty to 
thirty often sat down. It was always, according to the wont 
of such houses in that well-fed land, a meal beneath which 
the tables groaned, and whose massive Saxon dishes would 
have made a Frenchman sweat. Everything is excellent at 
these lavish feasts ; but they have no luxuries save such as 
are home-grown. They are, however, all that is substantial and 
plain, the very summit of good cheer. At Governor Henry's, 
they never failed to be. besides, seasoned with his conversation, 
which at table always grew gay and even gamesome. The 
dinner ended, he betook himself to his studies until supper, 
after which he again gave himself up to enjoyment. In this 
manner came, with the kindliest and most cheerful approach, 
the close of his days." 

403 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

" He was very abstemious in his diet," says Patrick 
Henry Fontaine, " and used no wine or alcoholic stim- 
ulants. Distressed and alarmed at the increase of 
drunkenness after the Revolutionary War, he did every- 
thing in his power to arrest the vice. He thought that 
the introduction of a harmless beverage, as a substi- 
tute for distilled spirits, would be beneficial. To effect 
this object, he ordered from his merchant in Scotland 
a consignment of barley, and a Scotch brewer and his 
wife to cultivate the grain and make small beer. To 
render the beverage fashionable and popular, he always 
had it upon his table while he was Governor during his 
last term of office ; and he continued its use, but drank 
nothing stronger, while he lived. ... In his old 
age, the condition of his nervous system made the scent 
of a tobacco-pipe very disagreeable to him. The old 
colored house-servants were compelled to hide their 
pipes, and rid themselves of the scent of tobacco, 
before they ventured to approach him. They protested 
that they had not smoked, or seen a pipe ; and he inva- 
riably proved the culprit guilty by following the scent, 
and leading them to the corn-cob pipes hid in some 
crack or cranny, which he made them take and throw 
instantly into the kitchen fire, without reforming their 
habits, or correcting the evil, which is likely to continue 
as long as tobacco will grow." 

Still telling of Henry and the men who saw to it 
that the larder never got lean, Fontaine continues : 

"His residence overlooked a large field in the bottom of 
Staunton River, the most of which could be seen from his 
yard. He rose early ; and in the mornings of the spring, sum- 
mer, and fall, before sunrise, while the air was cool and 
calm, reflecting clearly and distinctly the sounds of the lowing 
herds and singing birds, he stood upon an eminence, and gave 
orders and directions to his servants at work a half-mile distant 
from him. The strong, musical voices of the negroes responded 
to him. During this elocutionary morning exercise, his enuncia- 

404 



RED HILL 

tion was clear and distinct enough to be heard over an area 
which ten thousand people could not have filled ; and the tones 
of his voice were as melodious as an Alpine horn." 

Thus a grandson, painting for us a morning picture ; 
now a great-granddaughter, presenting us with a softer 
evening picture — fit little pendant for the larger first. 
Elizabeth Henry Lyons says: 

" Towards the close of day, in summer-time, he took the 
breeze on the lawn. Around him played his children, to 
whom he was greatly attached, and whom he treated as com- 
panions and friends. He was very fond of music, and often- 
times the sweet notes of his flute or violin, echoing on the 
evening air, broke the stillness of the valley." 

Some of the Henry servants had Indian blood. In 
the great meadow near Red Hill house one can trace 
the site of an ancient town. All other parts of the 
meadow may be flooded, but this space remains high 
and dry. " Beautifully cut arrow-heads, stone hatchets, 
and pottery with crude marks of decoration," says Mrs. 
Lyons, " may yet be found on the once happy hunting- 
grounds of a banished race. One of these aborigines, 
' Indian Jim,' intermarried with a slave woman, and 
her grandson, Harrison, was living until a few months 
ago in a cabin on the hillside, near the family mansion. 
He had the high cheek-bones and copper skin of his 
grandfather, but in other respects he was a typical 
body-servant of an old and almost forgotten regime. 
He was trained in the house by the widow of Patrick 
Henry." 

" Fox-a-laddie," "Scotchman," "Uncle Big Solo- 
mon," and "Jack White" were the locally famous Henry 
blacks of whom tradition tells in connection with their 
master. They knew that Red Hill was bottomed on 
flint rock, because they had dug down into it, and they 
verily believed that Patrick Henry was the greatest 

405 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

man this side Bible times, because he was a prophet. 
One of them overheard him say : " Ah, after my head 
is covered up in clay, you will see what will come of 
it ; " and he was so impressed with the phrase that he 
treasured it, and passed it down to his children. Henry, 
to his Bible-loving blacks, was a new *' John in the 
island of Patmos " — powerful to foretell. " Jack 
White," who was half Indian, and " Uncle Big Solo- 
mon " were with " the Governor " a great deal on his 
various journeys. How this Solomon bore '' Marse 
Patrick " on his broad shoulders across Staunton River 
and set him down in Halifax without a wetting is still 
talked of among the numerous Henry negroes in the 
Red Hill neighborhood. Never did they laugh so much, 
it is said, as at " Uncle Big Solomon's " struggle with 
the rapid red current of the swelling river. Imagine 
the old orator thus perched upon the black man's back, 
and we have a good picture of the life at Red Hill. 

From time to time attempts were made to induce 
Henry to reenter public life. It was the Federalist 
period — a period of strife, of bitterness, of danger. 
Henry philosophically held himself aloof from the 
struggle as long as he could; but he was too conscien- 
tious to remain entirely neutral, and too spirited to 
linger in downright inactivity. At last, in an emergent 
crisis, he was drawn from his Red Hill seclusion to the 
public stump at Charlotte Court-house ; and thereby 
hangs a tale which would be long and complicated if 
told in its minutiae, but which may be made short and 
straightforward here. 

Now, if we have it in mind that a Federalist of 1798 
was identical with a "Federalist of 1788, let us disabuse 
ourselves of the misleading idea. If we think that the 
Anti-Federalists who fought the Constitution in the 
late eighties were identical with the Republicans (really 
Democrats) of the late nineties, let us also dismiss that 

406 




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ENTRY IN FAMILY BIIJLE— PATRICK HENRY'S HANDWRITING 
(The interlineations were made by other members of the family after Henry's death.) 



RED HILL 

superficial and deceptive notion. Great changes had 
come. Mason was dead. Richard Henry Lee was 
dead. The issue they had contended for was not dead, 
but in Henry's estimation it was no longer debatable. 
They had battled hard against consolidated government. 
They had lost. They had used every legitimate strata- 
gem to secure amendments. They had gained half 
of their desire. And so matters rested. The new 
government was an accomplished fact. In Washington's 
view, it was necessary to have a secure government, 
based on the Constitution and common-sense; in Ham- 
ilton's, a strong government, conducted by experts, 
and in essentials unfettered by democracy ; in Jefferson's, 
a popular government, managed with an eye to the sov- 
ereign attributes of the people and to the rights of the 
States. The line of party cleavage was between the 
ground taken by Hamilton and the ground upon which 
the greatest politician of his age now planted the stand- 
ard of the people. Meantime, portentous storms arose. 
War with England seemed imminent. War with France 
appeared to be in swift affluxion, bearing hither, on 
destruction bent, the same ships that had saved us. 
The un-American Alien Act angered multitudes. The 
despotic Sedition Act was equally inflammatory of the 
public mind. Then, in answer to these acts, came the 
nullification threat in the Kentucky Resolutions, drawn 
by Jefferson, and the veiled threat in the somewhat 
milder Virginia Resolutions, drawn by Madison. A 
break-up was impending; and Washington, troubled in 
his heart, feared anarchy. 

Henry all this time supported the Federal Govern- 
ment. Having with his own eyes beheld Virginia take 
up the pen that wrote away certain of her own powers, 
and with that pen subscribe to the nationalization of the 
United States, he knew exactly where his allegiance 
belonged. Strange to say, Madison, who had fought 

407 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

for strong government in 1788, was the State Rights 
advocate of 1798. He had swung about, parting with 
Hamilton at the time of the Assumption Act, and there- 
after permitting Jefferson to dominate him. Not so 
with Henry. Jefferson tried in vain to win Henry, 
and afterwards spoke of him abusively; but, as we 
have said, the times were bitter, and, as we have further 
said, Jefferson's obliquity of estimate in his old age was 
notorious. See, now, the way of it. One great man is 
dead, and another talks about him. What the living 
great man says finds credence — is gospel truth with 
many, because those who listen look up to him. The 
living great man knows that his words will be repeated 
and sent about the country, or put into a book and 
copied into other books. He gains assurance from the 
knowledge that even though he assert positively things 
which some disbelieve, the weight of his word will 
carry it over and beyond their denials. He knows, 
also, that the subject of his slighting remarks cannot 
refute him. It is safe for a living great man to dis- 
parage the great man who is dead and, for the time 
being, out of favor with fame. But we shall not set 
ourselves up as censors of Jefferson, whose services 
to his country were of vast import. He becomes a hero 
with us when we are school-children, because It was 
he who wrote the Declaration of Independence, and be- 
cause we are taught that in so writing he wrote himself 
into the book of the founders. At all times through 
life we are prepared to scorn those who speak lightly of 
the Declaration, and when we die, it is with as much 
love for it as when we first understood what it meant. 
As the founder of an historic party, too, Jefferson is a 
commanding figure. Few characters are more inter- 
esting — few men have played so useful a part. As 
Professor Bassett points out, his very defects served 
to make him an adaptable coordinating force. Yet, 

408 



RED HILL 

averse as we are to controversy here, no one can tell 
the story of the old patriot, Patrick Henry, without 
putting a white light on these defects. *' It is provok- 
ing, and it is astonishing, and it is humiliating," says 
John Adams, '' to see how calumny sticks and is trans- 
mitted from age to age." Adams, himself a target for 
feathered darts of truth as well as of malicious ones, 
knew whereof he spoke. 

Let us remember to whom Jefferson attributed the 
inquiry into his conduct as Governor, and that the inci- 
dent was never forgotten. It cut too deep. Jefferson, 
who became bankrupt, found it hard to forgive Henry 
for the crime of getting rich. Jeflfersonian ideas pre- 
vailed in Virginia years after Henry's death, and the 
Jeffersonian tincture and bias influenced many matters 
connected with Henry's memory.* 

Here is an example of the way Jefferson referred to 
Henry. The letter, dated July lo, 1796, is to Monroe: 

" Most assiduous court is paid to Patrick Henry. He has 
been offered everything which they knew he would not accept. 
Some impression is thought to be made on him, but we do not 
believe it is radical. \i they thought they could count on him, 
they would run him for their Vice-President, their firm object 
being to produce a schism in this State." 

Later in life, Jefferson wrote: 

" General Washington flattered him by an appointment to 
a mission to Spain, which he declined, and by proposing to 

* Jefferson's overshadowing influence at the beginning of the 
Nineteenth Century is well shown by the Legislature's course 
in the matter of a Henry memorial. A resolution providing 
for a marble bust of Henry, to be placed in the hall of the 
House, was actually tabled ; and year after year went by with- 
out proper recognition of his services. It is to Wirt's lasting 
credit that he looked beneath the surface, and resolved to erect 
a monument of greater value than a marble bust could be. 

409 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

him the office of Secretary of State, on the most earnest 
solicitation of General Henry Lee, who pledged himself that 
Henry would not accept it ; for General Washington knew that 
lie was entirely unqualified for it, and moreover that his self- 
esteem had never suffered him to act as second to any man on 
earth." 

Here we see two men placed in a bad light. Wash- 
ington is shown as an insincere soul — a double-dealer. 
Who beHeves it ? Jefferson put it on record in his own 
hand that Washington was in his dotage. Who believes 
that? Jefferson wrote a private letter to his friend 
Philip Mazzei, in Florence, and mischief arose when it 
got into print ; for it abused Washington and his whole 
following. " It would give you a fever," wrote Jeffer- 
son, " were I to name to you the apostates who have 
gone over to these heresies, men who were Samsons in 
the field and Solomons in the council, but who have had 
their heads shorn by the harlot England." No wonder 
Washington was deeply hurt — almost put out of heart 
with humankind, for he had but lately received a letter 
from Jefferson professing fidelity. 

In speaking of Henry as an " apostate," it may be 
that Jefferson did not consider the word he used abusive. 
From the very start, the language of American politics 
has been ridiculously violent. The man in opposition 
has always been an '' ingrate," and vice versa; and, as 
each of us is in opposition to some one else, it follows 
that we are all '' ingrates." Jefferson himself was sub- 
jected to such terrific vilification that *' apostate " may 
have seemed to him to be milky in its mildness. What he 
probably meant with respect to Henry was that, to be 
consistent, Henry should have stood by the State Rights 
men. But Henry's position was logical. Fundament- 
ally he had not changed. The times had. He had fa- 
vored a stronger general government until alarmed by 
the threat to close the Mississippi. Then he had feared 

410 



RED HILL 

it, and opposed it with all his might. He had said over 
and over again, out of his heart and with all the vehe- 
mence of his intense nature, that the new government 
was a consolidated affair, a nation. Would he not have 
belied himself now if he had joined Jefferson and 
declared that the new government was not a consolidated 
affair, but a compact between sovereign States ? The 
fact is that he had reverted to the ground occupied by 
him before he had become alarmed at the spectre of 
despotism. Mason, Lee, Henry, thousands of Liberty 
men, had qualms about despots. Madison was actually 
inconsistent, but Henry only seemed to be so. He must 
have realized, about the time of his retirement, that one- 
man power was not to be feared, after all — that he had 
magnified the matter. He watched the progress of 
affairs, and became interested in the success of the new 
government. Washington's neutrality policy with regard 
to France pleased him greatly. He had a deep dread 
and horror of infidelity, and it saddened him to think 
that so many republicans in America sympathized with 
those of the red breed abroad. Jefferson courted the 
Reds ; Henry shrank from them. This feeling alone 
was enough to prevent him from joining hands with 
Jefferson. No doubt the conservatism which comes 
with age influenced Henry in some degree. We are not 
to forget that he was a rebel by nature. But your 
fiercest propagandist is tamed by time. By this we do 
not mean that Henry lost his republicanism — not at all. 
But there was a tinge of philosophy in his later view. 
We should not wonder if he were a bit weary. At first 
he had welcomed the French Revolution. But in 1798 
he said to a company which was discussing the news 
that Bonaparte had annihilated five Austrian armies : 

" It won't do ! The present generation in France is so 
debased by a long despotism, they possess so few of the virtues 

411 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

that constitute the life and soul of republicanism, that they are 
incapable of forming a correct and just estimate of rational 
liberty. Their revolution will terminate differently from what 
you expect — their state of anarchy will be succeeded by despot- 
ism, and I should not be surprised if the very man at whose 
victories you now rejoice should, Caesar-like, subvert the 
liberties of his country. All who know me know that I am 
a firm advocate for liberty and republicanism. I believe I 
have given some evidence of this. I wish it may not be so, 
but I fear the event will justify the prediction." 

Obviously, Henry's patriotic attitude towards the 
troubled young government of the United States was 
a power for good in Virginia. Many of his friends 
were his followers till death. Other adherents of for- 
mer days were puzzled by his course, and some censured 
him. They could not participate in the magnanimity 
of the man who, having taken off his hat to the new 
government — the supreme law of the land — proceeded 
to obey it, in the spirit and in the letter. Writing from 
Red Hill, August 20, 1796, to " My dear Betsy " (Mrs. 
Aylett), Henry said: 

" As to the reports you have heard of my changing sides 
in politics, I can only say that they are not true. I am too old 
to exchange my former opinions, which have grown up into 
fixed habits of thinking. True it is, I have condemned the 
conduct of our members in Congress, because, in refusing to 
raise money for the purposes of the British treaty, they in 
effect would have surrendered our country, bound hand and 
foot, to the power of the British nation. This must have been 
the consequence, I think; but the reasons for thinking so 
are too tedious to trouble you with. The treaty is, in my 
opinion, a very bad one indeed. But what must I think of 
those men whom I myself warned of the danger of giving the 
power of making the laws, by means of treaty, to the President 
and Senate — when I see these same men denying the existence 
of that power which they insisted, in our Convention, ought 
properly to be exercised by the President and Senate, and by 
none other? The policy of these men, both then and now, 
appears to me quite void of wisdom and foresight. These senti- 

412 



RED HILL 

ments I did mention in conversation in Richmond. ... It 
seems that every word was watched which I casually dropped, 
and wrested to answer party views. Who can have been 
so meanly employed, I know not — nor do I care; for I no 
longer consider myself an actor on the stage of public life. 
It is time for me to retire; and I shall never more appear 
in public character, unless some unlooked-for circumstance 
shall demand from me a transient effort not inconsistent with 
private life — in which I have determined to continue. I see 
with concern our old Commander-in-Chief most abusively 
treated — nor are his long and great services remembered as 
any apology for his mistakes in an office to which he was totally 
unaccustomed. If he, whose character as our leader during 
the whole war was above all praise, is so roughly handled in 
his old age, what may be expected by men of the common 
standard of character? . . . The view which the rising 
greatness of our country presents to my eye is greatly tarnished 
by the general prevalence of deism, which, with me, is but 
another name for vice and depravity. . . , May God bless 
you, my dear Betsy, and your children." 

Next in value to Henry's own testimony with respect 
to his political beliefs is that of Judge John Tyler, who 
wrote of him : 

" The close of his life was clouded in the opinion of many of 
his friends, supposing he was attached to the aristocratic 
[Federalist] party; but however he might have been misled in 
founding his opinions by misrepresentations in his aged and 
infirm state, it was impossible he could be an aristocrat. His 
principles were too well fixed. ... I lament that I could 
not see him before his death ; he sent me a message expressing 
his desire to satisfy me how much he had been misrepresented. 
* Men might differ in ways and means, and not in principles,' 
said he." 

Tyler was so robust a character, so clear-headed a 
rnan, so capable, so sincerely a democrat, and withal 
so outspoken, that his judgment concerning the catho- 
licity of Henry's republicanism offsets and cancels all 
that need be cleared away in the matter of unjustifiable 

413 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

criticism. The testimony, it is observed, relates to 
Henry's last days. Judge Roane intimates that Henry's 
health was so undermined in 1797 and 1798 as to lay 
him open to the approach of manipulating politicians, 
and this weakness, this unwonted pliancy, this mellow- 
ing towards a world he was soon to leave, may have 
been apparent to those who walked with him under 
the locusts at Red Hill ; but no weakness shows either 
in his acts or in his correspondence. In fine, whenever 
the Patrick Henry of the '90's took issue with the 
Patrick Henry of the '8o's, it was with a patriotic as 
distinguished from a partisan motive, and for a cause 
in no way conflicting with his settled principles as a 
champion of liberty in the new world. 

Certainly, ambition, so strong with old men who 
have tasted battle, had nothing to do with his course. 
One has but to go over a list of the high places offered 
him., to appreciate the truth of this : 

In 1794 he was tendered a United States Senatorship 
by General Henry Lee, then Governor of Virginia. 

In the same year President Washington proposed 
to send him as Minister to Spain. 

In 1795 Washington wished to make him Secretary 
of State. 

In 1796 Washington proffered him the Chief- Justice- 
ship of the United States Supreme Court. 

In the same year Washington designed to send him 
as Minister to France. 

Talked of as a candidate for the Vice-Presidency, 
he declined proffered votes in the Electoral College for 
the Presidency itself. 

For the sixth time he was elected Governor of Vir- 
ginia. 

In 1799 President Adams named him as Envoy to 
France, and the Senate confirmed the nomination. 

All these places and honors were declined by Henry. 

414 



RED HILL 

He knew his power, but preferred not to exercise it 
except on rare occasions. He helped to elect General 
Lee to Congress, and wrote a memorable letter that is 
thought to have sent John Marshall thither. This letter 
was dated January 8, 1799, and, as William Wirt 
Henry reminds us, furnishes " a complete answer to 
the taunt that his mental faculties were fallen into 
decay." Mellowed into kindness they may have been, 
but his head was as clear as a bell. Marshall's contest 
was with John Clopton, and the letter was in answer to 
one from Archibald Blair, who knew that a good word 
from Henry would go a long way in the Hanover dis- 
trict. In the course of his letter, Henry referred to the 
trouble with France, whence Marshall had lately re- 
turned. He wrote: 

" Her conduct has made it the interest of the great family of 
mankind to wish the downfall of her present government, 
because its existence is incompatible with that of all others 
within its reach. And whilst I see the dangers that threaten 
ours from her intrigues and her arms, I am not so much 
alarmed as at the apprehension of her destroying the great 
pillars of all government and of social life ; I mean virtue, 
morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this 
alone, that renders us invincible. These are the tactics we should 
study. If we lose these, we are conquered, fallen indeed. 
In vain may France show and vaunt her diplomatic skill and 
brave troops ; so long as our manners and principles remain 
sound, there is no danger. But ... I feel the value of 
those men amongst us who hold out to the world the idea 
that our continent is to exhibit an originality of character ; 
and that instead of that imitation and inferiority which the 
countries of the old world have been in the habit of exacting 
from the new, we shall maintain the high ground upon which 
nature has placed us, and that Europe will alike cease to rule 
us and give us modes of thinking. . . . Tell Marshall I 
love him, because he felt and acted as a republican, as an 
American. The story of the Scotch merchants and old Tories 
voting for him is too stale, childish, and foolish, and is a French 
finesse; an appeal to prejudice, not reason and good sense. 
. . . I really should give him my vote for Congress pref- 

415 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

erably to any citizen in the State at this juncture, one only 
excepted, and that one in another line. ... I am too old 
and infirm ever again to undertake public concerns. I live 
much retired, amidst a multiplicity of blessings from that 
Gracious Ruler of all things to whom I owe unceasing ac- 
knowledgments for His unmerited goodness to me ; and if I 
was permitted to add to this catalogue one other blessing, it 
would be that my countrymen should learn wisdom and virtue, 
and in this their day know the things that pertain to their 
peace." 

In all probability, this eloquent letter served a great 
purpose. But for it, Marshall, whose majority was only 
io8, would not have been upon the floor of the House to 
defend President Adams ; but for his powerful defence, 
Adams would not have made him Secretary of State 
and Chief-Justice ; but for his work as Chief-Justice 
during thirty-four years, much that was amiss would 
have lacked amendment. 

Let us confess that thus far, in this account of Henry's 
last days, we have purposely withheld certain parts of 
the story that refer to Washington. The personal rela- 
tions between the tv/o ceased to be cordial at the time 
of the contest over the Federal Constitution. Exag- 
gerated sayings attributed to one were reported to the 
other. False tales were borne. Plenry was led to be- 
lieve that his former friend now looked upon him with 
coldness, if not in enmity. In 1791 Washington made 
a carriage-tour of eighteen hundred miles through the 
South, and on his return stopped in Prince Edward. 
He did not see Henry, but talked with men who subse- 
quently buzzed in Henry's ear. A tale-bearer with a 
political purpose falsely reported that Washington had 
spoken of Henry as *' a factious, seditious character." 
Henry, of course, v/as grieved. Men who wished to 
keep them apart forged some letters in which Washing- 
ton was made to abuse Henry. Washington discovered 
the forgeries, and was at pains to put his repudiation 

416 



RED HILL 

of them on record; but, for the time being, they had 
a mischievous effect. It was not in Henry's nature to 
harbor ill feeling against any man of decency, much less 
against a man whom he admired above all others. David 
Meade Randolph says : 

" The purity of Mr. Henry's republicanism was shown 
when dining with his brother, Colonel John Syme, at Rocky 
Mills, during a May session of the Circuit Court, held by 
Judge Iredell at Richmond. The company was composed of 
very respectable characters of both parties. ' The people,' as 
the first toast upon removing the cloth, was announced very 
audibly by the host. Mr. Henry, pushing his old black wig 
aside, as was his custom when much excited, and with his 
elbows akimbo, exclaimed : * What, brother ! Not drink to 
General Washington, as we used to? For shame, brother! 
for shame ! ' and filling up his glass with a bumper of Thom- 
son's Madeira, announced the name of Washington." 

We know, too, how Washington felt towards Henry. 
In forwarding to Mount Vernon a copy of Henry's 
letter in behalf of Marshall's candidacy, Blair wrote: 
'' With regard to you, sir, I may say, as he said of 
Marshall, that he loved you, and for the same reason — 
because you felt and acted as a republican, as an Ameri- 
can ; for I have no doubt but he alluded to you when 
he makes the exception, ' one other, who was in another 
line,' to whom he would give the preference." Wash- 
ington, in his reply, said : " My breast never harbored 
a suspicion that Mr. Henry was unfriendly to me ; 
although I had reason to believe that the same spirit 
which was at work to destroy all confidence in the public 
functionaries was not less busy in poisoning private 
fountains and sowing the seeds of distrust among men 
of the same political sentiments." 

But it is likely that Washington and Henry would 
have gone to their graves without a renewal of their 
friendship, had it not occurred to General Lee to bring 
27 417 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

them together. It was in sounding Henry on the Chief-- 
Justiceship that this quick-witted mediator learned of the 
wound in Henry's breast because of the reported remark 
at Prince Edward. Away, then, went Lee, and speedily 
wrote to Washington, who, in his reply, made it clear 
that he had never used the words attributed to him. 
He said : " A part of the plan for creating discord is, 
I perceive, to make me say things of others, and others 
of me, which have no foundation in truth." Lee's good 
offices were used with such delicacy that in a little while 
the two friends, long apart, were reunited. 

In a letter marked " confidential," which is dated 
Mount Vernon, January 15, 1799, Washington wrote 
to Henry: 

" It would be a waste of time to bring to the view of a 
person of your observation and discernment the endeavors of 
a certain party among us to disquiet the public mind with un- 
founded alarms ; to arraign every act of the administration ; 
to set the people at variance with their government, and to 
embarrass all its measures. ... At such a crisis as this, 
when everything dear and valuable to us is assailed . . . 
when measures are systematically and pertinaciously pursued 
which must eventually dissolve the Union, or produce coercion ; 
I say, when these things have become so obvious, ought 
characters who are best able to rescue their country from the 
pending evil to stay at home? Rather ought they not to come 
forward, and by their talents and influence stand in the 
breach which such conduct has made on the peace and 
happiness of this country, and oppose the widening of it? 
. . . I come, now, my good sir, to the object of my letter, 
which is to express a hope and an earnest wish that you will 
come forward at the ensuing elections (if not for Congress, 
which you may think would take you too long from home) as 
a candidate for Representative in the General Assembly of the 
Commonwealth. . . . Your weight of character and influ- 
ence in the House of Representatives would be a bulwark 
against such dangerous sentiments as are delivered there at 
present. It would be a rallying point for the timid, and an 
attraction of the wavering. In a word, I conceive it to be of 
immense importance at this crisis that you should be there ; and 

418 



RED HILL 

I would fain hope that all minor considerations will be made 
to yield to the measure." 

Such was the appeal of one of the fathers and found- 
ers, who was soon to die, to another already dying. 
Henry could not resist it. He would do what he could. 
He was feeble, but he would buckle on his armor once 
more and go down to battle. He caused it to be sounded 
abroad that he would stand for the House. He who had 
put from him certain high honors would plead for a 
higher — he would ask his neighbors of Charlotte to make 
him their Representative. He would address them on 
the green at Charlotte, on County Court day, the first 
Monday in March. 

On the first Sunday in March Henry ventured forth in 
his carriage, and was driven twenty miles " to the house 
of a friend," that of Colonel Joel Watkins, of *' Wood- 
fork," where he was accustomed to stop, and there spent 
the night. In the morning he drove three miles to the 
Court-house, where a concourse welcomed him. Not 
Charlotte alone, but neighboring counties contributed 
to the throng. Some had never heard Henry; others, 
who had heard him, wished to hear him again, for it 
was well understood that this, perforce, would be his 
parting speech. 

"As soon as he appeared on the ground," says Wirt, 
"he was surrounded by the admiring and adoring 
crowd, and whithersoever he moved, the concourse fol- 
lowed him. A preacher of the Baptist Church, whose 
piety was wounded by this homage paid to a mortal, 
asked the people aloud : ' Why they followed Mr. Henry 
about? Mr. Henry,' said he, Ms no god.' 'No,' said 
Mr. Henry, deeply affected by both the scene and the 
remark, • no, indeed, my friend ; I am but a poor worm 
of the dust — as fleeting and unsubstantial as the shadow 
of the cloud that flies over yonder fields and is remem- 

419 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

bered no more.' The tone with which this was uttered, 
and the look which accompanied it, affected every heart 
and silenced every voice." 

From this mention of the cloud-shadows upon the 
surrounding fields we understand just what sort of a 
day it was — a day of glinting sunshine, with wind aloft. 
We see the whole scene, indeed — the Court-house, in 
which the grand jury was sitting; the hive-like tavern 
fronting the green, with Henry on the porch, his chair 
surrounded by old acquaintances ; the platform for the 
speakers; the pack of vehicles, and the ever moving 
throng. In this throng were three candidates for Con- 
gress — Colonel Clement Carrington, Federalist ; Pow- 
hatan Boiling, Republican ; and another. Boiling, " tall, 
proud in his bearing, and a fair representative of the old 
aristocracy fast melting away," was bantered about his 
scarlet coat. *' Very well, gentlemen," said he, bristling, 
" if my coat does not suit you, I can meet you in any 
other color." Boiling's Republican rival was John Ran- 
dolph. " A tall, slender, efTeminate-looking youth was 
he," says Hugh A. Garland ; " light hair, combed back 
into a well adjusted queue — pale countenance, beardless 
chin, bright, quick hazel eye, blue frock, buff small- 
clothes, and fair-top boots. He was doubtless known 
to many on the court green as the little Jack Randolph 
they had frequently seen dashing by on wild horses, 
riding a la mode Anglaise. from Roanoke to Bizarre, 
and back from Bizarre to Roanoke." One can imagine 
the remarks of the crowd, adds Garland : " ' And is that 
the man who is a candidate for Congress ? ' * Is he 
going to speak against Old Pat ? ' ' Why, he's nothing 
but a boy — he's got no beard !'...' Old Pat will 
eat him up bodily !'...' Mr. Taylor,' said Colonel 
Reid, the clerk of the county, to Mr. Creed Taylor, a 
friend and neighbor of Randolph, ' don't you or Peter 
Johnson mean to appear for that young m.an to-day ? ' 

420 




PATRICK henry's CHAIR, IN WHICH HE DIED 




PATRICK HENRY'S DESK 



RED HILL 

' Never mind,' replied Taylor, ' he can take care of 
himself.' " 

But the crowd soon pressed towards the platform, 
whence James Adams announced : " Oyez ! oyez ! 
Colonel Henry will address the people from this stand, 
for the last time and at the risk of his life." Thereat, 
** the grand jury burst through the doors, some leaped 
from the windows and came running up with the crowd, 
that they might not miss a word that fell from the old 
man's lips." 

Adams lifted Henry to the stand, and, as he did so, 
Henry said : " Why, Jimmy, you have made a better 
speech for me than I can make for myself ! " 

" Speak out, father," said Jimmy, *' and let us know 
how it is." 

Many professors and students from Hampden-Sidney 
College were present ; and one of the students, John 
Miller, of South Carolina, mounted upon the pedestal 
of a pillar, where he stood within eight feet of Henr}\ 
Miller says : 

" He was very infirm, and seated in a chair conversing with 
some friends who were pouring in from all the surrounding 
country to hear him. At length he arose with difficulty, and 
stood, somewhat bowed with age and weakness. His face 
was almost colorless. His countenance was careworn, and 
when he commenced his exordium, his voice was slightly 
cracked and tremulous. But in a few moments a wonderful 
transformation of the whole man occurred, as he warmed 
with his theme. He stood erect : his eyes beamed with a light 
that was almost supernatural ; his features glowed with the 
hue and fire of youth ; and his voice rang clear and melodious, 
with the intonations of some grand musical instrument whose 
notes filled the area, and fell distinctly and delightfully upon 
the ears of the most distant of the thousands gathered before 
him." 

No short-hand report was made of the speech, but, 
according to an account in John Randolph's handwrit- 

421 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

ing, and according to the testimony of scores of good 
listeners, such as Dr. Archibald Alexander, Dr. John 
H. Rice, and the Rev. John Robinson, it ran as follows : 

" He told the people that the late proceedings of the 
Virginia Assembly had filled him with apprehension and alarm; 
that they had planted thorns upon his pillow ; that the State 
had quitted the sphere in which she had been placed by the 
Constitution, and in daring to pronounce upon the validity of 
Federal laws had gone out of her jurisdiction in a manner not 
warranted by any authority, and in the highest degree alarming 
to every considerate man ; that such opposition on the part 
of Virginia to the acts of the General Government must beget 
their enforcement by military power ; that this would probably 
produce civil war ; civil war, foreign alliances ; and that foreign 
alliances must necessarily end in subjugation to the powers 
called in. He conjured the people to pause and consider well 
before they rushed into such a desperate condition, from which 
there could be no retreat. He painted to their imaginations 
Washington, at the head of a numerous and well-appointed 
army, inflicting upon them military execution. ' And where,' 
he asked, 'are our resources to meet such a conflict? Where 
is the citizen of America who will dare to lift his hand against 
the father of his country, to point a weapon at the breast of 
the man who has so often led them to battle and victory?' 
A drunken man in the crowd, John Harvey by name, threw 
up his arm and exclaimed that ' he dared do it.' * No,' 
answered Mr. Henry, rising aloft in all his majesty, and in 
a voice most solemn and penetrating, ' you dare not do it ; in 
such a parricidal attempt, the steel would drop from your 
nerveless arm ! ' * 

*' * The look and gesture at this moment,' said Dr. Rice, who 
related the incident, ' gave to these words an energy on my 
mind unequalled by anything that I have ever witnessed.' 

* Dr. J. H. Rice wrote to Wirt, expressing doubt as to 
whether history should take cognizance of such incidents as 
this. Things of the kind might be misleading. " Perhaps they 
will give an incorrect view of the state of affairs at that 
period. It was a stormy time, indeed. But many more bitter 
words would have been spoken, and much more black ink 
shed, I think, before the people would have fallen to cutting 
each other's throats." 

422 



RED HILL 

" Mr. Henry, proceeding in his address, asked ' whether the 
county of Charlotte would have any authority to dispute an 
obedience to the laws of Virginia ' ; and he pronounced Vir- 
ginia to be to the Union what the county of Charlotte was 
to her. 

" Having denied the right of the State to decide upon the 
constitutionality of Federal laws, he added that it might be 
necessary to say something of the merits of the Alien and 
Sedition laws, which had given occasion to the action of the 
Assembly. He would say of them that they were passed by 
Congress, and Congress is a wise body. That these laws were 
too deep for him ; they might be right, and they might be 
wrong. But whatever might be their merits or demerits, it 
belonged to the people who held the reins over the head of Con- 
gress, and to them alone, to say whether they were acceptable 
or otherwise to Virginians ; and that this must be done by 
way of petition. . . . ' If,' said he, ' I am asked what is to 
be done when a people feel themselves intolerably oppressed, 
my answer is ready — overturn the government. But do not, 
I beseech you, carry matters to this length without provocation. 
Wait at least until some infringement is made upon your rights 
that cannot be otherwise redressed ; for if ever you recur to 
another change, you may bid adieu forever to representative 
government. You can never exchange the present govern- 
ment but for a monarchy. If the Administration have done 
wrong, let us all go wrong together.' 

" Here he clasped his hands and waved his body to the right 
and left, his auditory unconsciously waving with him. ' Let 
us,' said he, 'trust God and our better judgment to set us right 
hereafter. United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split 
into factions which must destroy that union upon which our 
existence hangs. Let us preserve our strength for the French, 
the English, the Germans, or whoever else shall dare invade 
cur territory, and not exhaust it in civil commotions and 
intestine wars.' " 

When Henry had ceased, friends took him up in their 
arms and bore him to a room. Dr. Rice, standing by, 
said: " The sun has set in all its glory." 

It was not until later that the expression, " the rising 
and the setting sun," was applied to the chief orators 
at this Charlotte gathering. " The rising sun " was 

423 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Randolph — '' young Jack Randle," as he was locally 
called. 

" For some moments," says Garland, " he [Randolph] 
stood in silence, his lips quivering, his eyes swimming in 
tears ; at length he began a modest though beautiful 
apology for rising to address the people in opposition 
to ' the venerable father.' " He was hoarse, and there- 
fore could not do himself justice, but he entertained 
and held the great assemblage for a long while — three 
hours, it is said. " He rarely failed with a Virginia 
assembly," comments Henry Adams ; " and in this case 
his whole career depended on success. . . . What 
he said is not recorded, and in no case would it be very 
material. ... At this period Randolph did not talk 
in, the crisp, nervous, pointed language of his after life, 
but used the heroic style." Garland attempts a sum- 
mary of the speech ; but Adams surmises that it " could 
have been only a solemn defence of States' rights ; an 
appeal to State pride and fear ; an ad hominem attack on 
Patrick Henry's consistency, and more or less effective 
denunciation of Federalists in general. What he could 
not answer, and what must become the more impressive 
through his own success, was the splendor of a senti- 
ment : history, past and coming ; the awe that surrounds 
a dying prophet threatening a new doom deserved." 
Adams is impelled to urge that nothing in Henry's 
life was nobler than his last public act. He says, with 
eloquence : 

" The greatest orator and truest patriot, a sound and con- 
sistent democrat, sprung from the people and adored by them — 
this persistent and energetic opponent of the Constitution, who 
had denounced its over-swollen powers and its ' awful squint 
towards monarchy,' now came forward, not for office, nor to 
qualify or withdraw anything he had ever said, but with his 
last breath to warn the people of Virginia not to raise their 
hand against the national government. ... In the light 

424 



RED HILL 

of subsequent history, there is a solemn and pathetic grandeur 
in this dying appeal of the old Revolutionary orator." 

It is doubtful whether Henry left his room during 
Randolph's speech. " About this whole scene," says 
Moses Coit Tyler, '' have gathered many myths." Some 
writers, misled by a life of Henry in '' The New Edin- 
burgh Encyclopedia," 1817, have repeated the story that 
Henry replied to Randolph, but there was no such reply. 
Nor can there be entire truth in the anecdote which 
makes Henry say of Randolph : '' I haven't seen the 
little dog before since he was at school. He was a great 
atheist then." He had seen Randolph in court during 
Richard Randolph's trial, and probably at the time of 
the argument in the British Debt Cause. Garland says 
that they dined together after the Charlotte meeting. 
Henry said, in his kind way : " Young man, you call 
me ' father.' Then, my son, I have something to say 
unto thee : Keep justice, keep truth — and you will hve 
to think differently." But all his life Randolph clung 
to the State Rights doctrine. He was sincere in his 
belief. It was his fiercest conviction. 

Oddly enough, at the April election both Henry and 
Randolph were chosen — one to the Legislature, the other 
to Congress ; but Henry was never again to leave Red 
Hill, whither he had returned in physical distress. He 
had drawn too heavily on his store of vitality. He was 
obliged to take to his bed. He became much emaciated. 
Nevertheless, he got out of bed to write a reply to 
Timothy Pickering, Secretary of State, declining the 
appointment as Minister to France. This was on the 
i6th of April. May foimd him weaker still. Intes- 
tinal disorder developed. The leading physician in that 
part of the State, Dr. George Cabell, of Lynchburg, 
remained with Henry constantly. " Dear Patsy," he 
wrote to his daughter, Mrs. Martha Fontaine, who had 

425 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

continued to dwell in the Leatherwood country, " I am 
very unwell, and Dr. Cabell is with me." When Mrs. 
Fontaine and others of his kin reached Red Hill, they 
" found him sitting in a large old-fashioned arm-chair, 
in which he was easier than in bed." The family's dis- 
tress was deepened by the receipt of a letter, on June i, 
from Judge Roane, who wrote to Henry : " The cup 
of my misery, my dear sir, is now full, by the loss of 
my most amiable, virtuous, and affectionate consort, 
your dutiful and affectionate daughter." But the letter 
was kept from Henry, lest the shock of Anne's death 
should make him worse. 

Henry's disease was intussusception — " a form of 
obstruction of the bowels, in which part of the intestine 
enters within that part immediately beneath it. This 
can best be understood by observing what takes place 
in the fingers of a tightly fitting glove, as they turn 
outside in when the glove is pulled off the hand." In- 
testinal inflation with air, or surgery, would now be the 
treatment, but in those days it was different. 

Henry died well — in the full faith. " Oh, how wretched 
should I be at this moment," he said, " if I had not 
made my peace with God ! " There was a Socratic ease 
of spirit and a beautiful stoicism in his last act. His 
grandson, Patrick Henry Fontaine,* tells us about it: 

'' On June 6, all other remedies having failed, Dr. 
Cabell proceeded to administer to him a dose of liquid 



* Edward Fontaine wrote in the Southern Churchman, 
Alexandria, Va., Feb. 4, 1869: "My father, mother, uncle, 
and Aunt Dandridge gave me an account of his [Patrick 
Henry's] last illness and death, which I think worthy of 
preservation." Then follov/s in the Southern Churchman a 
statement of facts identical with those here presented ; but 
our text follows Moses Coit Tyler's extract from the Edward 
Fontaine Manuscript at Cornell University. William Wirt 
Henry's account is practically the same. 

426 



RED HILL 

mercury. Taking the vial in his hand, and looking at 
it a moment, the dying man said : 

" ' I suppose, doctor, this is your last resort?' 
'' The doctor repHed : ' I am sorry to say, Governor, 
that it is. Acute inflammation of the intestines has 
already taken place ; and unless it is removed, mortifica- 
tion will ensue, if it has not already commenced, which 
I fear.' 

"'What will be the effect of this medicine?' said 
the old man. 

" ' It will give you immediate relief, or ' the kind- 
hearted doctor could not finish the sentence. His patient 
took up the word : 

" ' You mean, doctor, that it will give relief or will 
prove fatal immediately ? ' 

" The doctor answered : ' You can only live a very 
short time without it, and it may possibly relieve you.' 

" Then Patrick Henry said : ' Excuse me, doctor, 
for a few minutes ; ' and drawing over his eyes a silken 
cap which he usually wore, and still holding the vial in 
his hand, he prayed, in clear words, a simple, childlike 
prayer for his family, for his country, and for his own 
soul, then in the presence of death. Afterwards, in 
perfect calmness, he swallowed the medicine. 

" Meanwhile, Dr. Cabell, who greatly loved him, went 
out upon the lawn, and in his grief threw himself down 
upon the earth under one of the trees, weeping bitterly. 
Soon, when he had sufficiently mastered himself, the doc- 
tor came back to his patient, whom he found calmly 
watching the congealing of the blood under his finger- 
nails, and speaking words of love and peace to his family, 
who were weeping around his chair. Among other 
things, he told them he was thankful for that goodness 
of God which, having blessed him all his life, was then 
permitting him to die without any pain. Finally, fixing 
his eyes with much tenderness on his dear friend, Dr. 

427 



THE TRUE PATRICK HENRY 

Cabell, with whom he had formerly held many argu- 
ments respecting the Christian religion, he asked the 
doctor to observe how great a reality and benefit that 
religion was to a man about to die. And after Patrick 
Henry had spoken to his beloved physician those few 
words in praise of something which, having never failed 
him in all his life before, did not then fail him in his 
very last need of it, he continued to breathe very softly 
for some moments ; after which they who were looking 
upon him saw that his life had departed." 

The garden walk at Red Hill leads to his grave. 
Box-tree hedges enclose a space fifty feet square, and 
here, side by side, are two oblong slabs of marble. The 
inscription on one reads : " To the memory of Dorothea 
Dandridge, wife of Patrick Henry. Born 1755. Died 
February 14, 1831." The other inscription reads: ''To 
the memory of Patrick Henry. Born May 29, 1736. 
Died June 6, 1799. His fame his best epitaph." 



428 



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APPENDIX 



NOTE 

When at the beginning of a book a reader looks with toler- 
ance upon a writer's shortcomings, and not only gets into the 
habit of forgiving them, but lends a hand in working out the 
theme, all is apt to go well. But since what is one man's 
literary meat is another's poison, it may be assumed that we 
have had a reader of a different sort, less indulgent of the 
numerous licenses taken, who began critically, followed without 
sympathy, and continued cold to the end. In which case it 
is apparent that somebody still lacks a satisfactory grasp of 
Patrick Henry's attributes. But we have kept this type of 
reader in mind all along, and for his especial benefit now make 
a placatory offering — the well-rounded contemporary estimate 
of Henry by Judge Roane. This luminous Roane memorandum 
was written for Wirt, who seems to have undervalued it. 
We have used a little of it in the body of our book, but no 
more than was necessary in getting side-lights. The verified 
facts in the Wirt papers supplied by Nathaniel Pope, George 
Dabney, Charles Dabney, and Judge Edmund Winston have 
all been incorporated. Part of Meredith's narrative has ap- 
peared, but the main portion of it is now to precede Roane's. 
Together, they constitute an excellent survey of Henry's life. 

Spencer Roane, son of William, born April 4, 1762, a legis- 
lator in 1782 and a member of the Executive Council in 1784, 
became in time a distinguished judge in the General Court 
and later in the Virginia Supreme Court. So ardent a Repub- 
lican was he that he would permit no appeals from his Court 
to the Supreme Court of the United States. He died Septem- 
ber 4, 1822. 

Roane's candor, his judicial method, his plain way of putting 
things, his dignity of expression — these qualities enter into his 
style, which is patterned upon the straightaway narrative style 
most favored by substantial Americans. Though the memor- 
andum has been extensively drawn upon by Henry writers, it 
has never before been published in its most forceful form — the 
consecutive form. It is here copied from the original manu- 
script : and is given in its entirety, with the exception of a few 
paragraphs cut out to avoid repetition. 

429 



Appendix A 



COLONEL SAMUEL MEREDITH'S STATEMENT 

(as taken DOWI^^ BY JUDGE WILLIAM H. CABELL) 

Patrick Henry was born in Hanover, May i8th [Old Style], 
1736. His father was a Scotchman, from Aberdeen, of a very 
liberal and extensive education.* He was sent to a common 
English school until about the age of ten years, where he 
learned to read and write, and acquired some little knowledge 
of arithmetic. He never went to any other school, public or 
private, but remained with his father, who was his only 
Tutor.b With him he acquired a knowledge of the Latin 
language ^ and a smattering of the Greek. He became well 
acquainted with the Mathematics,^ of which he was very fond. 
At the age of 15 he was well versed in both ancient and 
modern History. His uncle had nothing to do with his educa- 
tion. 

Until he arrived to eminence at the Bar, there was nothing 
very remarkable in the person, mind, or manners of Mr. Henry. 
His disposition was very mild, benevolent, and humane. He was 
quiet and inclined to be thoughtful, but fond of society. From 
his earliest days he was an attentive observer of everything of 
consequence that passed before him. Nothing escaped his 
attention. He was fond of reading, but indulged much in 
innocent amusements. He was remarkably fond of his gun. 
He interested himself much in the happiness of others, par- 
ticularly of his sisters, of whom he had eight, and whose advo- 
cate he always was when any favor or indulgence was to be 
procured from their mother. 

In his youth he seemed regardless of the appearance of his 
outside dress, but was unusually attentive in having clean linen 
and stockings. He was not remarkable for an uncouth or 
genteel appearance (the preceding remarks are particularly 
applicable to Mr. Henry's youth), and in fact there was nothing 
in early life for which he was remarkable except his invariable 
habit of close and attentive observation. He had a nice ear 
for music, and when he was about the age of 12, he had his 
collar bone broken, and during the confinement learned to play 
very well on the flute. He was also an excellent performer on 
the violin, but the whole story of his keeping the bar of a 

431 



APPENDIX 

tavern is utterly false. Col. Meredith was about four years 
older than P. Henry, and lived within four miles of him from 
his birth till he (P. H.) left Hanover, and declares that there 
is no man to whom such an occupation would have been more 
abhorrent.® 

He was, in early youth, as in advanced life, plain and eas}'- 
in his manners, exempt from that bashfulness often so distress- 
ing to young persons who have not seen much company. 

It is not true that he left his father ; on the contrary, 
he was one of the most dutiful sons that ever lived. Col. 
Meredith often heard this observation made by his father. 

Although an excellent performer on the violin, he never 
played but in select companies ^ and for the amusement of 
his particular friends. 

One thing is remarkable in Mr. Henry, and this information 
comes from his sister, Mrs. Meredith, a very pious woman, that 
he was never known in his life to utter the name of God except 
on a necessary or proper occasion.^ He was through life a 
warm friend of the Christian religion. He was an Episcopalian, 
but very friendly to all other sects, particularly the Presby- 
terian. His father was an Episcopalian, his mother a Presby- 
terian. He was so pleased with Soame Jenyns' Internal View 
of the Christian Religion that, meeting v/ith a copy of it when 
he was Governor, or shortly after, he had several hundred 
copies printed and distributed at his own expense. Doddridge's 
Rise and Progress of Religion was his favorite author on the 
subject of Religion. 

About the age of 15 he became clerk for some merchant in 
Hanover, and continued in that employment for one year, 
when his father purchased a parcel of goods for him and his 
brother William, and they commenced business on their own 
account. They were jointly interested, but Patrick was the 
principal manager. They, however, did not continue business 
longer than one year, when it was found necessary to abandon . 
it, as they had injured themselves by granting too extensive 
credit. P. H. was then engaged in winding up the business of 
the concern until he was married, the Fall after he was 18, 
to a daughter of Mr. John Shelton, who lived in the forks 
of Hanover. She was a woman of some fortune and much 
respectability, by whom he had six children. She died about 
the year '70 or '71.*^ In April ^y6^ he was married to a daughter 
of Mr. Nath'l Dandridge, now the wife of Judge Winston, by 
whom he had nine children — living at, or some short time 
before, his death. 

432 



APPENDIX 

P. H. lived in Hanover till about the year '64 or '65, when he 
removed to Louisa, which County he represented when he made 
the famous stand against the Stamp Act. He returned to 
Hanover in '67 or '68, where he purchased Scotch Town, a 
noted place, the former seat of Col. Chessil, where he re- 
mained until he was elected Governor. On his resignation 
as Governor he removed to Leatherwood, in Henry County, 
where he had purchased a large body of land. He remained 
there several years, then gave the most of his land there to his 
children by his first wife, retaining the balance. He then re- 
moved ^ to Prince Edward, where he continued 6 or 7 years, 
and then moved to Long Island, in Campbell, where he con- 
tinued three or four years, and then moved to Booker's Ferry 
on Stanton river, where he lived till his death, except that he 
occasionally moved from Booker's Ferry, or Red Hill (the 
name of his seat), to Long Island during the sickly months. 
His furniture was all of the plainest sort, consisting of neces- 
saries only; nothing for show or ornament. He regarded as 
nothing the trouble of moving, and would change his dwelling 
with as little concern as a common man would change a coat 
of which he was tired. He was uncommonly hospitable ; his 
attentions were not confined to the rich, the great, or wise, 
but he was familiar with every man of good character. 

On his first marriage, he received from his father-in-law 
a tract of land and 14 or 15 negroes; and also a tract of land 
and 4 or 5 negroes from his father. He then commenced 
farmer, and so continued till he commenced the study of the 
Law, about 18 months before the trial in Hanover Court of 
the famous cause commonly called the " Parsons' Cause." 

He did not read Law under, the direction of any person.^ It 
was not even made known to any of his friends until he 
consulted his friend John Lewis as to his fitness to commence 
the practice, who encouraged him to apply for a license, in 
which application he was successful. 

He began the practice in Hanover and Louisa, but got little 
or no business and made no figure until the above mentioned 
trial in Hanover. It should have been observed that he was 
not more than six or eight months engaged in the study of 
the Law,™ during which time he secluded himself from the 
world, availing himself of the use of a few Law books owned 
by his father. . . . 

Col. John Henry, the father of Patrick Henry, had one other 
son, named William, and seven daughters. Wm. received an 
estate from his father in Fluvanna, near the mouth of Hard- 

28 433 



APPENDIX 

ware, where he died, leaving only one child, which died in a 
short time after. 

About the year '64 or '65, Col. John Henry's fortune having 
been much reduced from a want of good management and 
knowledge of plantation affairs, he engaged in the business 
of keeping a school, and took charge of 10 or 12 boys, whom 
he taught for about twelve months, when he was assisted by 
a Scotchman whose name was Walker. He then took about 
twenty scholars, and continued for four or five years to teach 
that number, when he died. . . . 

P. H. in a communication to Col. M. stated his motives for 
resigning his commission as Colonel. He conceived himself 
neglected by younger officers having been put above him and 
preferred to him, particularly in the affair of the Great Bridge, 
where he wished to have commanded, but Col. Woodford re- 
ceived that appointment. 

He disliked being kept in and about Williamsburg and not 
appointed to some more important Post or expedition. He 
was thus induced to think he was neglected by those who had 
the power of appointment. He therefore resigned. 

NOTES ON COL. MEREDITH'S NARRATIVE 
(by s. r. [judge roane]) 

(He married Mr. H.'s sister, and had good opportunity of 
information on the subjects on which he speaks.) 

* So I have always understood. 
^'His father, therefore, taught him. 

^ I have always supposed he had learned some Latin ; I 
have no knowledge as to Greek. 

^ I have an idea that he was fond of Mathematics and 
Natural Philosophy, tho' I suppose he was not regularly edu- 
cated in the latter. 

^ This I entirely believe to have been the case. 

' I never heard him play, tho' he may have done so in 
the former part of his life, or when I was not present; tho' I 
rather think he never played in his latter years. 

s I never heard him swear that I remember. 

^ Judge Winston says in 1775. 

i Winston says in *77 — which I think was the case, as I have 
always understood it was after he was Governor. 

^ This was after he resigned the Government, in Dec. '86, 

* I never understood that he did. 
m Winston says six weeks. 

434 



Appendix B 



JUDGE SPENCER ROANE'S MEMORANDUM 

My acquaintance with the late Patrick Henry did not com- 
mence till the year 1783. In the Spring of that year I met 
him in the General Assembly, as a Delegate for the County 
of Henry, and served four sessions with him in that year and 
the next. 

Although during that period I often heard him speak, I 
formed no very particular acquaintance with him, as I was then 
a very young man, and was naturally averse from pushing 
myself into the society of so distinguished a character. 

Richard Henry Lee was also a Delegate during those years 
and with him I was well acquainted, almost from my child- 
hood. He had been very often at my father's house, who 
had long served in the Assembly with him, as well as with 
Patrick Henry, and when a young man had written in the 
office of Col. Geo. Lee, the Clerk of Westmoreland and a 
relation of R. H. Lee's. 

In the Fall session of '84, Mr. Henry was elected Governor 
the second time, commencing in December of that year. I 
was elected a Councillor the same session, to commence in the 
May following. Mr. Henry continued Governor then two years, 
and I remained in the Council till the end of the year '86, when 
I resigned. 

During that time I had an opportunity to become well 
acquainted with Mr. H., and especially as I had, during the 
time, formed connection in his family, in which I was, of 
course, domesticated. 

After he had ceased to be Governor, and I had left the 
Council, owing to the distance by which we were separated 
I only saw him in the Assembly, of which he was a Delegate 
from Prince Edward and I a member of the Senate, until I 
rode the Circuit as a Judge of the General Court, in 1790 and 
the four succeeding years. I was, during those years, at 
least three times on his Circuit, and every time left my family 
at his residence in Prince Edward, and at Long Island, and 
accompanied him to the Courts of Prince Edward and New 
London, in which he then practised, and on to Great Bridge 
Court, whither he went to defend a criminal. This gave me 

435 



APPENDIX 

an opportunity to see him in a new character : that of a 
counsellor in civil and criminal cases. 

After I ceased to ride the Circ't, by being elected into the 
Court of Appeals, and he quitted the practice of law, I never 
again saw him, owing to the distance, though I was at his 
house on my last Circuit, in the Fall of '94. He was always 
in his lifetime very cordial and affectionate towards me. 

I have entered into this detail to show that, although I am 
unable to say much of his life or character prior to '83, except 
from the information of his family and others, I have had 
some opportunity to be well acquainted with him since that 
period. . . . 

With respect to the domestic character of Mr. Henry, 
nothing could be more amiable. In every relation, as a hus- 
band, father, master, and neighbor, he was entirely exemplary. 
It is no exception from this character that, I conceive, he 
meditated an act of injustice towards some of his first chil- 
dren, by his last Will ; one of whom, too, at least, was a favor- 
ite child. That is to be ascribed to the extreme debility 
under which he then labored, and the urgent importunity of 
an interested second wife, who assailed him with the claims 
of her nine children. (This occurrence, of course, will not 
be mentioned in his biography. I may be mistaken in the 
idea, and it had better sink into oblivion.*) 

The particulars of this transaction are detailed in a suit I 
brought in the Court of Chancery, against his Executors, after 
his death, and in which I recovered. I have no wish to bring 
that transaction into this detail ; I only now mention it for the 
purpose of declaring that even that occurrence forms no 
exception against his justice as a parent; it was entirely owing 
to the debility and to influences . . . [illegible]. 

As to the disposition of Mr. Henry, it was the best imagin- 
able. I am positive that I never saw him in a passion, nor 
apparently even out of temper. Circumstances which would have 
highly irritated other men had no such visible effect on him. He 
was always calm and collected, and the rude attacks of his ad- 
versaries in debate only whetted the poignancy of his satire. 
Witness his cutting reply to F. Corbin in the Virginia Assembly, 
about bowing, of which no doubt Mr. Wirt has been informed. 
It exceeded anything of the kind I ever heard. He spoke and 
acted this reply, and Corbin sank at least a foot in his seat. 

* Roane was of course an interested party. Patrick Henry's 
provision for the children of his first wife had been liberal. 

436 



APPENDIX 

Shortly after the Constitution was adopted, a series of the 
most abusive and scurrilous pieces came out against him, under 
the signature of Deems. They were supposed to be written 
by Mr. Nicholas (Americanus), with the assistance of other 
more important men. They assailed Mr. Henry's conduct in 
the Convention, and slandered his character by various stories 
hatched up against him. These pieces were extremely hateful 
to all Mr. H.'s friends, and indeed to a great portion of the 
community. 

I was at his house in Prince Edward during the thickest 
of them, and I declare that he seemed to evince no more desire 
to see the newspapers containing them than the most indifferent 
person in the County. He evinced no feeling on the occasion, 
and far less condescended to parry the effects thereof on the 
public mind. It was too puny a contest for him, and he reposed 
upon the consciousness of his own integrity. 

Patrick Henry had a remarkable faculty of adapting him- 
self to his company. Of this talent, so important to him as 
a public speaker, I shall presently speak ; at present I have 
only reference to the ordinary intercourse of society. He 
would be pleasant and cheerful with persons of any class or 
condition, vicious and abandoned persons always excepted 
He preferred those of character and talents, but would amuse 
himself with any who could contribute to his amusement. 

Although sufficiently tenacious of his character and dignity, 
he was not to be offended by rude liberties when no offence 
was intended. I will give one instance which struck me in a 
remarkable manner. He had been to Greenbrier Court to 
defend a criminal named Holland, of which trial I shall speak 
more particularly hereafter. 

This trial had attracted great attention in the upper country 
and in Mr. Henry's own neighborhood. I was returning there- 
from with Mr. H., and within 15 miles of his house we saw 
a laboring man at a Brake by the road, and believe he was 
known to Mr. H. He accosted Mr. Henry with " How do you 
do. Colonel?" Mr. H. replied. He then asked Mr. H. what 
he had done with Holland. Mr. H. replied that he was ac- 
quitted, on which the man replied, with great seeming 
exultation, " Hurrah for old Henry ! " Mr. H., not at all 
offended with the coarseness of this exclamation, bid the man 
good-bye, and jogged down the road, smiling. 

Mr. Henry was a child of Nature. He preferred, I believe, 
being in the country, and to be free from the restraints of 
polished society; yet he could readily adapt himself to that 

437 



APPENDIX 

situation. When he was Governor the second time (and I 
presume more so the first), he rarely appeared in the streets, 
and never without a scarlet cloak, black clothes, and a dressed 
wig, &c. The ideas attached to the office of Governor, as 
handed down from the Royal Government, had not then got 
down to their present level ; and I expect he considered this 
course a just adaptation to the public opinion. . . . With 
great simplicity and suavity of manner, he had as much true 
dignity as any man. . . . His dress was plain, as also was 
his house and furniture, and he was careless about his diet. He 
took no delight in the pleasures of the table. He was one of 
the most temperate men I ever knew. He rarely drank any 
wine or spirits, and his frequent custom was, in the country, 
to go to a wooden cask and drink water out of a gourd. 

I believe he had been fond of hunting and fishing in his 
youth, but I saw nothing of it after I became acquainted with 
him ; except that when he lived at Long Island he showed me a 
Slope, or fish trap, which he made across a branch of Staunton 
river, that furnished fish for his family, and spoke with 
pleasure of a buck which had recently been caught therein by 
having been brought down the river in the current. 

I have no doubt, from report, but Mr. H. had been a good 
performer on the violin, and was in other respects a musical 
man; but I never heard him play on a violin, or any other 
instrument, or even sing or hum a tune. His daughters played 
on musical instruments, but these seemed not much to engage 
his attention. 

His great delight was in conversation, and in the society of 
his friends and family, and in the resources of his own mind. 
I have understood from the family that he had engaged in 
trade when young, and had failed ; but I never heard that he 
was ever a bar-keeper, nor do I believe it. If his father- 
in-law owned a tavern, it is possible that he might have assisted 
gratuitously, at times, but the man's nature must have changed 
if he could ever have been adapted to a calling of this kind. 
I have no conception of any man who would have been more 
abhorrent at mixing toddy and seeing it drunk in a tavern 
than Patrick Henry. The case is, however, unimportant; his 
rise in the world has been sufficiently remarkable without 
introducing into his history fiction of this kind. 

As to the kind of clothes in which he went dressed in 
his youth, according to some of the statements, we must 
refer (unless they be ascribed to a poverty so extreme as to 
have denied him better, and which I have never understood 

438 



APPENDIX 

was the case) to the customs of the times in which he lived. 
I can myself remember when there was only one four-wheeled 
carriage, and two pair of boots (called shoe-boots), in the 
wealthy and fashionable County of Essex. I myself delighted 
to go barefooted and in trousers until I went to College, 
and I have heard my father say that his father, when pos- 
sessed of perhaps lOO Negroes, and when he was a Colonel of 
Militia and Justice of the quorum, would in his shirt and 
trousers (in summer) visit two or three of his plantations and 
return home to breakfast. 

I have said that Mr. Henry could adapt himself to all 
men in a remarkable manner. He was also well acquainted 
with the transactions of life, or, in other words, was a man 
of business. He could buy or sell a horse or a Negro as well 
as anybody, and was peculiarly a judge of the value and quality 
of land. He made several excellent bargains for lands in the 
latter part of his life, owing to his foresight and judgment. 
When I have told him that his lands were too far from market, 
he once replied to me that when he lived at Leatherwood, 
i8o miles from Richmond, persons passing by his house, from 
the upper parts of North Carolina, envied him his contiguity 
to market. 

No man ever vaunted less of his achievements than Mr. 
Henry. I hardly ever heard him speak of those great achieve- 
ments which form the prominent part of his biography. As 
for boasting, he was an entire stranger to it; unless it be that 
in his latter days he seemed proud of the goodness of his 
lands, and, I believe, wished to be thought wealthy. It is my 
opinion that he was better pleased to be flattered as to his 
wealth than as to his great talents. This I have accounted for 
by reflecting that he had long been under narrow and difficult 
circumstances as to property, from which he was at length 
happily relieved, whereas there never was a time when his 
talents had not shone conspicuous, tho' he always seemed un- 
conscious of them. 

With respect to Mr. Henry's education, he was equally 
silent on that subject to S. R. If he got a license after six 
weeks' reading, that was the very reason why he would not 
mention it, as it would look like boasting. 

I never heard Mr. Henry (nor Mr. Pendleton) say that 
he read Mr. Pendleton's books, nor do I believe it. If he had 
been under any obligations to Mr. P., he would have been 
grateful for them ; but, on the contrary, I have reason to 
believe that he was not very fond of Mr. P., nor Mr. P. 

439 



APPENDIX 

of him. I have heard Mr. Henry say that Mr. Pendleton was 
too much devoted to the aristocracy of former times ; that he 
was not thorough-going enough in the Revolution ; that he 
was in favor of an established church, when as a member of 
Congress he was contending for civil liberty ; and that Mr. P., 
on the bench of Caroline Court, justified the imprisonment of 
several Baptist Preachers, who were defended by Mr. Henry, 
on the heinous charge of worshipping God according to the 
dictates of their own consciences ; and that Mr. Pendleton 
was a man of too much courtesy in his passage through life, 
thereby meaning that he had too little candor, &c. On the 
contrary, I have heard Mr. P. insinuate of Mr. H., as far as 
he could do so in my hearing, who was connected with him, 
that he was a demagogue and a popular leader, &c. ... I 
mention these things to show that I do not believe that Mr. 
Henry ever read Law with Mr. P. or owed him any obligations. 

As to Mr. H.'s general education, I do not believe that he 
had a regular academical one, but I do believe that he had 
some knowledge of the Latin tongue, and acquaintance with 
some of the principal branches of Science. These a man of 
Mr. H.'s genius could not fail to acquire in a consider- 
able degree, if not in the school room, at least at the dinner 
table of his father, who was a well educated man. If other 
men could not catch an education under these circumstances, 
it does not follow that Mr, H. could not, though it is said 
in some of the statements that he was taught by his father. 

His genius was as far-soaring above those of ordinary men as 
is the first qualitied land of Kentucky beyond the sandy barrens 
of Pea Ridge (a barren ridge in King & Queen). 

As to his using a translation of Livy, he may have never 
been able to read the original with perfect ease, or have for- 
gotten the language. I was once able to read Homer with 
almost as much ease as the Spectator, which I owed to our 
good friend Warden and others, but am now obliged to read 
Pope's Homer, which Dr. Johnson (I think) says, and says 
truly, is not Homer's Homer. 

As for the general character of Mr. Henry's library, I readily 
believe that he had not a complete or regular one. He was not 
a man of regularity or system. When at his dwelling at Prince 
Edward, I lodged with my family in his study (house room 
being scarce), and there saw his library fully. I remarked that 
it consisted sometimes of odd volumes, &c., but of good books. 
I believe that an inventory and catalogue of the books he died 
possessed of is filed in my former suit in the Chancery, before 

440 



APPENDIX 

mentioned, and I expect it would be found to come within this 
description. That he was acquainted with ancient History and 
Mythology needs no further proof than the eloquent parallel 
used by him in his argument on the British Debt Case, between 
Rhadamanthus, Nero, and George III. 

I believe he was very fond of History, Magazines, good 
poetry or plays (say Shakespeare's), and I think was a very 
good geographer. He was particularly well acquainted with 
the geography, rivers, soil, climate, &c., of America. His 
speeches show that he was well acquainted with English His- 
tory. I think he had some acquaintance with Mathematics and 
Natural Philosophy. 

After all, while I believe that altho' Mr. H. had not a 
complete education, his great merit consists in this, that 
he acquired it by means impervious to ordinary men. 

There was one trait in Mr. Henry, flowing from his good 
disposition and his magnanimity, which did him great credit 
and is universally admitted. He was extremely kind to young 
men in debate, and ever ready to compliment even his adver- 
saries where it was merited ; of the latter class, his high 
eulogium upon Col. Innes' eloquence in the Virginia Con- 
vention will be recollected ; of the former class, the instances 
were innumerable. I will mention one which occurred in my 
own case. In the Spring of the year '83, several of the most 
respectable of my constituents of the County of Essex tarred 
and feathered one Jas. Williamson. He had been a merchant 
in Tappahannock, had gone to the British and endeavored to 
bring up tenders to burn the town during the war, and after 
the peace had returned to Tappahannock, where he was coun- 
tenanced by some of the ■ inhabitants. This gave such um- 
brage that he was pursued, caught, and tarred and feathered 
by the principal men of Essex. They were prosecuted for 
this misdemeanor in the general Court. While the prosecution 
was still pending, these citizens sent a petition to me in the 
Spring of '84, praying the Assembly to arrest the prosecution. 
I presented the petition, and got a law of indemnity in some 
progress, taking care to state, as the fact was, that the act 
was committed before the definitive treaty was signed, which 
was some alleviation of their conduct. 

Mr. Henry took me out, one day, and said that he admired 
the Whig spirit which actuated me, but that the intervention 
of the Legislature could not be justified. I told him that the 
transaction was irregular, but that the provocation was great, 
and the act done, in some sense, flagrante hello. He persisted 

441 



APPENDIX 

in his opinion, and I maintained my ground, intimated that 
I hoped he would not oppose me, but that if he did, I must 
nevertheless proceed. He left me, and did not oppose me, 
which I ascribe to the trait now in question, and the act of 
indemnity passed. This is one small instance, but a thousand 
others might be mentioned. 

Although I was personally unacquainted with Mr, Henry 
until 1783, I was no stranger to his character before that time. 
A volunteer at the age of thirteen, armed with a short carbine 
and tomahawk, and clothed in a hunting shirt with the words 
" Liberty or Death " engraved in capitals over my left breast, 
I could not be indifferent to the character of that man who 
electrified the American public by his eloquence in council, 
and roused them to resistance at a critical time by taking the 
field. 

I had even before this formed a high opinion of this man's 
eloquence, talents, and patriotism. My father, a burgess for 
Essex from 1768 to the Revolution, and once or twice during 
the war, always came home in raptures with the man. That 
a plain man, of ordinary though respected family, should beard 
the aristocracy by whom we were then cursed and ruled, 
and overthrow them in the cause of independence, was grate- 
ful to a man of my father's Whig principles. He considered 
Henry as the organ of the great body of the people ; as the 
instrument by whom the big-wigs were to be thrown down, 
and liberty and independence established. 

It is among the first things I can remember, that my father 
paid the expenses of a Scotch tutor residing in his family, 
named Bradfute, a man of learning, to go with him to 
Williamsburg to hear Patrick Henry speak; and that he 
laughed at Bradfute, on his return, for having been so much 
enchanted with his eloquence as to have unconsciously spirted 
tobacco juice from the gallery on the heads of the members, 
and to have nearly fallen from the gallery into the House. 
At a subsequent time, too, my father carried another tutor 
and myself, when not ten years old, to Williamsburg, on pur- 
pose to hear Patrick Henry speak, but no occasion brought 
him out before the vacation had expired, and we returned 
home. . . . 

With these impressions, I met Patrick Henry in the Assembly 
in May, 1783. I also then met with Richard Henry Lee. I 
lodged with Lee one or two sessions, and was perfectly 
acquainted with him, while I was as yet a stranger to Mr. 
Henry. These two gentlemen were the great leaders in the 

442 



APPENDIX 

House of Delegates, and were almost constantly opposed. Not- 
withstanding my habits of intimacy with Mr. Lee, I found 
myself obliged to vote with Patrick Henry against him in 
1783, and against Madison in 1784 (in which year, I think, R. H. 
Lee was sent to Congress), but with several important excep- 
tions. I voted against him (P. H.), I recollect, on the subject 
of the refugees — he was for permitting their return ; on the sub- 
ject of a general assessment, and the act of incorporating the 
Episcopal Church. I voted with him in general, because he 
was, as I thought, a more practical statesman than Madison 
(time has made Madison more practical), and a less selfish 
one than Lee. 

As an orator, Mr. Henry demolished Madison with as much 
ease as Sampson did the cords that bound him before he 
was shorn ; Mr. Lee held a greater competition. There were 
many other great men in the House, but as orators they cannot 
be named with Henry or Lee. Mr. Lee was a polished 
gentleman. His person was not very good, and he had lost 
the use of one of his hands, but his manner was perfectly 
graceful. His language was always chaste, and although 
somewhat too monotonous, his speeches were always pleasing ; 
yet he did not ravish your senses nor carry away your judg- 
ment by storm. His was of the mediate class of eloquence 
described by Rollin in his " Belles Lettres." He was like a ^ 
beautiful river meandering through a flowery mead, but which 
never overflowed its banks. It was Henry wdio was the 
mountain torrent that swept away everything before it. It was 
he alone who thundered and lightened. He alone attained 
that sublime species of eloquence also mentioned by Rollin. 

It has been one of the greatest pleasures of my life to hear 
these two great masters, almost constantly opposed to each 
other, for several sessions. I had no relish for any other 
speaker. Henry was almost always victorious. He was as much 
superior to Lee in temper as in eloquence, for while the 
former would often apologize to the House for being so 
often obliged to differ from the latter, which he assured them 
was from no want of respect for him, I once heard Mr. Lee 
say in a pet, after sustaining a great defeat, that if the votes 
were weighed instead of being counted, he would not have lost 
it. 

Mr. Henry was inferior to Mr. Lee in the gracefulness of 
his action, and perhaps also the chasteness of his language; 
yet his language was seldom incorrect, and his address always 
striking. He had a fine blue eye and an earnest manner which 

443 



APPENDIX 

made it impossible not to attend to him. His speaking was 
unequal, and always rose with the subject and the exigency. 
In this respect he entirely differed from Mr. Lee, who was 
always equal. At some times Mr. Henry would seem to 
hobble (especially in the beginning of his speeches), and at 
others his tones would be almost disagreeable ; yet it was by 
means of his tones and the happy modulation of his voice that 
his speaking had, perhaps, its greatest effect. He had a happy 
articulation and a clear, distinct, strong voice, and every 
syllable was uttered. He was very unassuming as to himself, 
amounting almost to humility, and very respectful towards 
his competitor ; the consequence was that no feeling of dis- 
gust or animosity was arrayed against him. His exordiums in 
particular were often hobbling, and always unassuming. He 
knew mankind too well to promise much. They were of the 
" menin aeide " cast (of Homer) rather than of the " fortu- 
nam Priami " of some author whose name is forgotten. 

He was great at a reply, and greater in proportion to the 
pressure which was bearing upon him. The resources of his 
mind and of his eloquence were equal to any drafts which 
could be made upon them. He took but short notes of what 
fell from his adversaries, and disliked the drudgery of com- 
position, yet it is a mistake to say he could not write well. 
Many of his public letters prove the contrary. I do not know 
that he ever wrote anything for the press. 

It has been urged against Mr. Henry by his enemies, and 
by the aristocrats whom he overthrew, that he always seized 
and advocated the popular side of the question. Nothing is 
less true. He opposed General Washington and an [illegible] 
world (as he said) on the subject of the Constitution. The 
man who would do this cannot be suspected of want of firm- 
ness to pursue his own opinions. The man who moved the 
Stamp Act resolutions, and took up arms to recover the 
gunpowder, pursued his own course. He had no certain indi- 
cation of the popular opinion in either case, and both measures 
were esteemed by ordinary men too rash and bold to be 
popular. Besides, why court the popular opinion when he 
wanted not popularity, for he had resisted (in the latter part 
of his life) every distinction which was offered him? 

On this subject, I take the fact to be that he generally thought 
like the most of people, because he was a plain, practical 
man, because he was emphatically one of the people, and be- 
cause he detested, as a statesman, the projects of theorists 
and bookworms. His prejudices against statesmen of this 

444 



APPENDIX 

character were very strong. He emphatically led the people in 
promoting and effecting the Revolution. 

At the bar Mr. Henry was equally successful. When I saw 
him there, he must necessarily have been very rusty, yet I 
considered him a good lawyer. He was acquainted with the 
rules and canons of property. He would not, indeed, undergo 
the drudgery necessary for complicated business, yet I am 
told that in the British Debt Case he astonished the public 
not less by the matter than manner of his speech. It was as 
a criminal lawyer that his eloquence had the fairest scope, 
and in that character I have seen him. He was perfect master 
of the passions of his auditory, whether in the tragic or the 
comic line. The tones of his voice, to say nothing of his 
matter and gestures, were insinuated into the feelings of his 
hearers in a manner that baffled all description. It seemed to 
operate by mere sympathy, and by his tones alone it seemed 
to me that he could make you cry or laugh at pleasure; yet 
his gesture came powerfully in aid, and if necessary would 
approach almost to the ridiculous. This was the case in the 
" roasting case " to be presently mentioned. So in Corbin's 
case. ... I will endeavor to give some account of his 
tragic and comic effect in two instances that came before 
me. 

About the year 1792 one Holland killed a young man in 
Botetourt. The young man was popular, and lived, I think, 
with King, a merchant in Fincastle, who employed John Breck- 
enridge to assist in the prosecution of Holland. Holland had 
gone up from Louisa as a schoolmaster, but had turned out 
badly, and was very unpopular. The killing was in the night, 
and was generally believed to be murder. He was the son 
of one Dr. Holland, who was yet living in Louisa, and had 
been one of Mr. Henry's juvenile friends and acquaintances. 
At the instance of the father, and for a reasonable fee, Mr. 
Henry undertook to go to Greenbrier Court to defend Holland. 
Mr. Winston and myself were the judges. Such were the 
prejudices there, as I was afterward informed by Thomas 
Madison, that the people declared that even Patrick Henry need 
not come to defend Holland unless he brought a jury with him. 

The day of the trial the Court House was crowded, and I 
did not move from my seat for 14 hours, and had no wish to 
do so. The examination took up a great part of the time, and 
the lawyers were probably exhausted. Breckenridge was elo- 
quent, but Henry left no dry eye in the Court House. The 
case, I believe, was murder, though possibly manslaughter only, 

445 



APPENDIX 

and Henry laid hold of this possibility with such effect as 
to make all forget that Holland had killed the storekeeper, 
and presented the deplorable case of the jury killing Holland, 
an innocent man. He also presented, as it were at the Clerk's 
table, old Holland and his wife, who were then in Louisa; 
asked what must be the feelings of this venerable pair at this 
awful moment, and what the consequences to them of a mis- 
taken verdict affecting the life of their son. He caused the 
jury to lose sight of the murder they were trying, and weep 
with old Holland and his wife, whom he painted, and perhaps 
proved to be, very respectable. All this was done in a manner 
so solemn and touching, and a tone so irresistible, that it was 
impossible for the stoutest heart not to take sides with the 
criminal. During the examination the bloody clothes were 
brought in. Mr. Henry objected to their exhibition, and ap- 
plied most forcibly and pathetically Antony's remarks on 
Caesar's wounds ; on those dumb mouths which would raise the 
stones of Rome to mutiny. He urged that this sight would 
totally deprive the jury of their judgment, which would be 
merged in their feelings. The motion fell, Mr. Winston being 
of opinion to reject them; I was of opinion to receive them as 
explanatory of the nature of the crime, by showing in what 
direction the strokes were given. 

The result of the trial was that, after a retirement of an 
half or a quarter of an hour, the jury brought in a verdict of 
not guilty! But on being reminded by the Court that they 
might find an inferior degree of homicide, they then brought 
in a verdict of manslaughter. 

Mr. Henry was equally successful in the comic line. Mr. 
Wirt has heard, no doubt, how he choused John Hook out of 
his cause by raising the cry of " Beef " against him. I will 
give a similar instance. About the year 1792 there were many 
suits on the south of James river for inflicting Lynch law. A 
verdict of $500. had been given in Prince Edward district 
court in a case of this kind. This alarmed the defendant in 
the next case, who employed Mr. Henry to defend him. The 
case was that a waggoner and the plaintiff were travelling to 
Richmond, and the waggoner knocked down a turkey and put it 
into his waggon. Complaint was made to the defendant, a 
justice; both the parties were taken up, and the waggoner 
agreed to take a whipping rather than be sent to jail, but the 
plaintiff refused. The justice, however, gave him also a small 
whipping, and for this the suit was brought. The plaintiff's 
plea was that he was wholly innocent of the act committed. 

446 



APPENDIX 

Mr. Henry, on the contrary, contended that he was a party 
aiding and assisting. In the course of his remarks he thus 
expressed himself: "But, gentlemen of the jury, this plaintiff 
tells you that he had nothing to do with the turkey — I dare 
say, gentlemen, not until it was roasted, " etc. He pronounced 
the word roasted with such rotundity of voice, and comicalness 
of manner and gesture, that it threw every one into a fit of 
laughter at the plaintiff, who stood up in the place usually 
allotted to criminals, and the defendant was let off with little 
or no damage. 

I have likened this faculty of Mr. Henry of operating upon 
the feelings, whether tragic or comic, by the mere tone of 
his voice, to the experiment of ringing a series of glasses by 
rubbing one of them with the finger. It operated by sympathy. 
Yet he ranted not, nor did he distress himself or his audience 
by an unnatural stretching of his throat. He had a perfect com- 
mand of a strong and musical voice, which he raised or low- 
ered at pleasure, and modulated so as to fall in with any given 
chord of the human heart. 

It is to be also observed that although his language was 
plain, and free from unusual or high-flown words, his ideas 
were remarkably bold, strong, and striking. By the joint effect 
of these two faculties, I mean of the power of his tone or voice 
and the grandness of his conceptions, he had a wonderful effect 
upon the feelings of his audience. Both of these concurred in 
the famous speech in the Convention which was interrupted 
by a storm, and of which I see Mr. Wirt has a note. The 
question of adoption was approaching, and from that cause 
every one had an awful and anxious feeling. This was, as it 
were, the parting speech of Mr. Henry, and he was depicting 
the awful immensity of the question and its consequences 
as it respected the present and future generations. He stated 
that the ethereal beings were awaiting with anxiety the de- 
cision of a question which involved the happiness or misery of 
more than half the human race. He had presented such 
an awful picture, and in such feeling colors, as to interest 
the feelings of the audience to the highest pitch — when lo ! a 
storm at that moment arose, which shook the building in which 
the Convention were sitting, and broke it up in confusion. So 
remarkable a coincidence was never before witnessed, and it 
seemed as if he had indeed the faculty of calling up spirits from 
the vasty deep. 

Mr. Henry was remarkably well acquainted with mankind. 
He knew well all the springs and motives of human action. 

447 



APPENDIX 

This faculty arose from mingling freely with mankind and from 
a keen and constant observation. From this faculty, and his 
great command of temper, he would have made a great negoti- 
ator. In fact, he was a great negotiator, for in managing a 
jury or a popular assembly he measured and gauged them by 
a discriminating judgment. He knew how much they would 
bear, and what was the proper string to touch them upon. 
The same faculty and discernment which enabled him to buy 
a tract of land, or a negro, on good terms, and to govern a 
jury or a popular assembly at pleasure, by measuring the depth 
of those with whom he was dealing, would have enabled him 
to fathom the views and feelings of Courts and Cabinets. 

The advantage of Mr. Henry's education consisted in this, 
that it arose from some reading which he never forgot, and 
much observation and reflection. It was remarked of Montes- 
quieu's " Spirit of Laws " that it was a good book for one 
travelling in a stage-coach, for that you might read as much of 
it in half an hour as would serve you to reflect upon a whole 
day. Such was somewhat the proportion between Mr. Henry's 
education as drawn from reading and from observation and re- 
flection. 

He read good books as it were for a text, and filled up the 
picture by an acute and penetrating observation and reflection 
and by mingling in the society of men. He had practised law 
in the County Courts : a school remarkably well adapted to 
acquaint a person with mankind in general. 

Mr. Henry was very fond of men of genius, and on this 
ground he was much attached to Dr. McClurg, and had a great 
agency in getting him into the Council in May, 1784. Dr. 
McClurg, I believe, would not have been then elected but for 
a speech of his just before the ballot. As he spoke, many 
members were seen to tear up their ballots prepared for other 
candidates. Mr. Henry took the ground for Dr. McClurg 
that he was a man of great genius and eminence in his pro- 
fession. At this time party had not thrown our citizens so far 
asunder. 

Mr. Henry did not permit political prejudices to tear asunder 
his friendships. I have heard that he interfered with the 
Committee of Hanover in favor of Mr. Lyons, an old friend 
and fellow-practitioner at the bar, and got him excused when 
suspected of some disaffection. He acted a very friendly and 
liberal part towards Mr. Ambler when Treasurer, who by 
some means sustained a considerable loss of public money, and 
for which Ambler was grateful. 

448 



APPENDIX 

Mr. Henry's talent for humor showed itself sometipies in 
a remarkable manner. About the year 1790, as I think 
I have heard him or some of the family say, General Lawson 
applied to him for his friendly advice touching the state of his 
affairs, which were deplorably bad. Lawson had been a 
Revolutionary patriot and soldier, and a colleague of Mr. 
Henry in the Assembly and Convention. Mr. Henry secured 
a full and frank disclosure. After he was done, H. paused, and 
Lawson requested his opinion ; on which Henry, looking at 
him significantly, said, " Why, faith. General, you had better 
run away." This, which was perhaps a jest in Henry, was 
literally followed by Lawson, who ran to Kentucky, spent his 
estate, and came to a wretched end. 

In estimating Mr. Henry's standing and endowments, the 
difficulties under which he labored ought to be taken into con- 
sideration. He was without a regular academical education. 
He was poor, married young, and had a numerous family. For 
a great part of his life (tho' he died rich) he was struggling 
in debt and difficulties. Where were his means and leisure 
for improvement? Contrast him in these respects with Madi- 
son, for example. Madison v^as born to affluence. His father 
early gave him a competent fortune, which also, I believe, he 
managed for him ; and Madison lived with his father, I believe, 
till past the age of forty, unincumbered with the cares of a 
family or with keeping house. He had, besides, received a 
finished education at Princeton. He had every opportunity for 
improvement, and his life was that of a recluse and student. 
Had Mr. Henry had these advantages and been as studious as 
Madison, he would have excelled him, if possible, as much in 
the knowledge of books as he actually did in that of men : the 
great source of his superiority over Madison in public assem- 
blies. 

It has been said of Patrick Henry that he was not a military 
man, and surmised that he was deficient in personal courage. 
As to the last, he was so good-tempered a man that I never 
heard of his having a quarrel. He did indeed call on Edm. 
Randolph in '88. . . . He had, however, what suited us 
much better : an astonishing portion of political courage. Per- 
haps it is not too much to affirm that it is owing to this one 
quality of this single man that our revolution took place at the 
time it did. As to his being a military man, he was certainly 
not a man of system and regularity, nor do I believe that he 
was a good tactician. He may nevertheless have had a genius 
which would have made him adequate (with the aid of subal- 
29 449 



APPENDIX 

terns) to great military operations. As to his resigning the 
command of the first regiment, it is probable that he may have 
thought himself slighted by the Committee of Safety, tho' 
I never heard him complain of it. Indeed, he seldom com- 
plained (as to himself) of anybody. That committee, however, 
had a spice of the old aristocracy in it, by whom Henry was 
much hated, and it might have been agreeable to some of them 
to mortify him. Pendleton, the eclipsed rival of Henry, pre- 
sided in the committee and had his party with him. 

The principal reason, I believe, why he resigned was that 
he was called for by the public voice as Governor, and was 
perhaps indispensably necessary in that station. His competitor 
for that office was Secretary Nelson, who was beaten easily by 
Patrick Henry, although supported by all the aristocracy, and 
by Pendleton and perhaps a few others of plebeian standing. 

Henry had strong prejudices for and against many of his 
political associates, though he only expressed them to his 
particular friends. He had the highest opinion of George 
Mason's talents, patriotism, and republican principles. He 
considered him as a man well acquainted with the interests of 
the people and warmly attached to the liberty of his country. 
A cordial friendship existed between them. Of R. H. Lee 
he did not think quite so well, and they were very often 
opposed to each other ; yet they coalesced on great questions, 
as that of independence, and opposition to the federal constitu- 
tion. In '88 Mr. Henry nominated Lee and Grayson as Sena- 
tors (taking the unusual liberty of nominating two) against 
Madison, and they were elected. He was very fond of John 
Tyler, as a warm hearted patriot and an honest, sensible man, 
and many others not necessary to be now mentioned. As 
to Mr. Madison, he considered him in '83 and '4 as a man of 
great acquirements, but too theoretical as a politician, and that 
he was not well versed in the affairs of men. This opinion 
increased in the Convention of '88; he was astonished that 
Madison would take the Constitution, admitting its defects, 
and in a season of perfect peace, and believed him too friendly 
to a strong government and too hostile to the Governments 
of the States. On these grounds he was rejected as a Sena- 
tor in '88; and probably this rejection was useful to Madison, 
for, to regain the confidence of his native State, he brought 
forward the amendments introduced in '89 into the Constitu- 
tion. 

Henry's prejudice against Madison always remained in some 
degree, and to this cause may in some measure be ascribed 

450 



I 



APPENDIX 

his alleged secession from the Republican party, now headed 
by Madison, toward the close of his life. With respect to 
this alleged change of his political principles, I shall say what 
I know about it. When I was last with him, in October, '94, 
there was no difference between his opinions and mine that I 
could discover. I was extremely well pleased with all his 
opinions, which he communicated freely. He had, after the 
adoption of the Constitution, taken the anti-federal side in the 
Assembly on all occasions. After this, matters seeming to 
come to extremities in relation to our foreign affairs, I under- 
stood, for I never again saw him, that he disapproved the policy 
of embarking in the cause of France and running the risk of 
a war with Britain. Possibly his sagacious mind foresaw the 
issue of the French Revolution, and dreaded the effect of a war 
with England upon our free government, and upon the finances 
of the United States. 

After it began to be rumored that he had changed his 
opinions, he wrote me several letters alluding to the report, 
and averring that his opinions were not changed, and that he 
was too old to change them, but admitting that he differed from 
the Republican leaders as to some of their measures, which 
he considered unwise and impolitic. I saw another long letter 
to one of his daughters, who had apprised him that he was 
charged with a change of his opinions, entirely to the same 
effect. According to the best of my recollection, this letter 
had some cant of religious professions, and complaint of the 
decay of virtue, &c., which I rather think indicated a change 
in him, and some debility or gloom in his understanding. The 
particular date of it is not recollected, but I rather think it was 
within the two years in which Judge Winston says he gradually 
declined before his death. The alleged change must, I presume, 
have been subsequent to the fall of '96, for in that session he 
was elected Governor for the third time, with a view to keep 
out General Wood, who was deemed a Federalist. Mr. Henry 
was voted for zealously by all the Republicans ; he declined, 
however, and Wood was then elected. 

It must have been about the same time that he was chosen 
a Senator of the United States, which I see is asserted in 
one of the statements furnished, tho' I have at present no dis- 
tinct recollection of that fact {qiiere de hoc). I have under- 
stood that for two or three years before he died he became 
much debilitated. . . , He was very retired, and much out 
of the way of correct information. I have also understood that 
he became then more religious, and that it became a frequent 

451 



APPENDIX 

topic of his conversation. This I must ascribe to the debility- 
just mentioned; for tho' I believe him to have been always a 
Christian, he was remarkably tolerant to others, and never 
obtruded that as the subject of conversation. In this state of 
seclusion and debility, he was a fit subject to be worked upon 
by artful politicians, to widen a breach which would not other- 
wise have been so great. That debility which, in the instance 
of the Will before mentioned, made him an easy prey to 
intrigues of a domestic character, laid him equally open to 
the arts of crafty politicians. 

Before this time General Washington, no doubt informed 
of some difference in opinion between him and the Republi- 
can leaders, wrote him flattering letters. He had appointed 
him Secretary of State, and he and Mr. Adams appointed 
him one of a trio of ambassadors to go to France, or England, 
and also a Minister to the Court of Spain ; all of which 
appointments Mr. Henry declined. I do not think that at 
the time these appointments were offered Mr. Henry was in 
this state of debility ; nor do I assert anything about this 
debility but from information and belief. I have no personal 
knowledge of it.* They were, however, offered after Patrick 
Henry began to diverge from the Republican party, and meas- 
ures were afterward taken to widen the breach and to inflame 
him against the Republican leaders. 

As to these measures, Henry Lee was the principal agent. 
He misrepresented the views and conduct of the Republicans, 
and flattered Mr. Henry, and assailed him on his weak side, 
in the trading for valuable lands which Mr. H. wished to 
acquire for the sons of his second marriage. B}'^ means like 
this I believe it was that Lee got from him a political letter, 
which he used to the injury of the Republican cause in a 
contested election in the Northern Neck. 

I well remember that when I visited Mrs. Henry, on her 
invitation, after Mr. Henry's death, I mentioned this fact 
to her, and stated the injury it had done to Mr. Henry with 
the Republicans. She seemed to agree with me on the 
subject, but concluded, with a laugh, that Henry Lee had been 
a great friend to their family, for that Mr. Henry had got two 

* Roane's ardent Republicanism should be kept in mind while 
one is reading his passages on Henry's political course during 
this period. Jefferson planned to put Roane in line for the 
Presidency. The idea was to run Crawford for President and 
Roane for Vice-President, and then to advance Roane. 

452 



APPENDIX 

fine tracts of land from him ! This was the instrument by 
which the influence of this infirm and declining old man was 
to be drawn from the Republican cause; this was the panacea 
for every injury. It must have been by similar means that 
a letter was got from Mr. Henry favoring Marshall in his 
election contest with Clopton. It was written to a man 
(Arch'd Blair) who, I well know, was hardly in the habit 
of conversing with Mr. Henry in his more prosperous days. 
On the whole, it is my decided opinion and belief (but I 
only give it as my opinion and belief) that Mr. Henry was 
operated upon by the artfulness and misrepresentation of 
artful and designing men, under circumstances of seclusion 
and debility arising from the infirmity of age and disease 
peculiarly fitting him for the operation ; and that by this 
means he was carried to greater lengths against the measures 
of the Republicans than he would otherwise have gone. 

The effect now supposed can only be ascribed to debility. 
Formerly no man was more armed against seductions of every 
kind than Patrick Henry. Offices had now no charm for 
him, for he declined them all before the time in question, and 
he was hackneyed through life to flattery and compliments. 
As a proof how impenetrable he had been to attempts of this 
kind, when Leven Rowell and Chas. Simons and others 
professed a willingness to vote for him as President, but 
not for Jefferson, he declined the thing by a short notification 
in the Gazette. If, therefore, he was operated upon, as I 
have supposed, it must be ascribed to debility, and to it 
only. Under other circumstances he could have got Lee's 
land without any sacrifice of opinion, for he was a match for 
Lee in bargaining. 

Mr. Winston says Mr. Henry died in June, 1799, after " a 
gradual decline of about two years." I suspect it will be 
found that his most violent complaints against the Republicans 
took place within those two years. This decline was not, 
perhaps, attended with effects palpably visible, for he was 
elected for Charlotte in April, '99 ; but it made him gloomy 
on the subject of religion, and querulous on that of politics. 
In short, I believe it made him a different man from what he 
had before been. At the same time, I readily admit that 
he had before differed from the Republicans in some degree 
as to measures of policy, in some instances ; in some of 
which, perhaps, time has shown that he was not mistaken. As 
to fundamentals, however, I must always believe he remained 
a true and genuine Republican. 

453 



APPENDIX 

In giving this sketch of what I knew of Mr. Henry, I 
have endeavored to be faithful. It will be seen whether a 
spirit of candor does not run through the relation, and how 
far it is corroborated by other accounts. It was my intention 
" nothing to extenuate, nor set down aught in malice." If my 
descriptions seem extravagant, let it be remembered that he 
was a most remarkable man. As for his public conduct and 
opinions, they are already before the world, who will judge of 
them. It is only his eloquence, character, and virtue to which 
my details have related. In forming an estimate of his elo- 
quence, no reliance can be placed on the printed speeches. 
No reporter whatever could take down what he actually said ; 
and, if he could, it would fall far short of the original. Much 
of the effect of his eloquence arose from his voice, gesture, 
etc., which in print is entirely lost. 

As to the character of Mr. Henry : with many sublime virtues, 
he had no vice that I knew or ever heard of, and scarcely a 
foible. I have thought, indeed, that he was too much attached 
to property: a defect, however, which might be excused on the 
largeness of a beloved family, and the straitened circumstances 
in which he had been confined during a great part of his 
life. 

Mr. Henry was a man of middling stature. He was rather 
stoop-shouldered (after I knew^ him), probably the effect of 
age. He had no superfluous flesh ; his features were distinctly 
marked, and his complexion rather dark. He was somewhat 
bald, and always wore a wig in public. He was, according 
to my recollection, very attentive to his teeth, his beard, and 
his linen. He was not a handsome man, but his countenance 
was agreeable, and full of intelligence and interest. He had 
a fine blue eye, and an excellent set of teeth, which, with the 
aid of a mouth sufficiently wide, enabled him to articulate 
very distinctly. His voice was strong, harmonious, and clear, 
and he could modulate it at pleasure. 

The miniature shown by Mr. Wirt has some resemblance of 
Mr. Henry, but is not a good likeness. It makes him too 
thin and wrinkled, and to appear older than he appeared 
when I last saw him. I saw that miniature about the time 
it was taken, and gave this opinion then. The portrait I 
mentioned to Mr, Wirt, if in existence, affords a better 
likeness. 



454 



Appendix C 

PATRICK HENRY'S WILL 

In the name of God, Amen : — I, Patrick Henry, of Char- 
lotte County, at my leisure and in my health do make this my 
last Will and Testament in manner following, and do write it 
throughout with my own hand. I, knowing my ever dear wife 
Dorethea to be worthy of the most full and entire confidence, I 
do will and devise to her the Guardianship of my children, and 
do direct and order that she shall not in any manner be ac- 
countable to any person for her management therein. I do give 
to my said wife Dorethea all my Lands at and adjoining my 
dwelling place called Red-hill, purchased from Fuqua, Booker, 
Watkins, & others, out of the tract called Watkins's order, to 
hold during her life, together with twenty of my slaves, 
her choice of them all, and at her death the said Lands are 
to be equally divided in value in fee simple betv/een two of 
my sons by her ; and she is to name and point out the two 
Sons that are to take the said Lands in fee simple at her dis- 
cretion. I will and direct all my Lands in my Long Island 
estate in Campbell County to be divided into two parts by 
Randolph's old road, till you come along it to the place where 
the new road going from the Overseer's house to Davis's mill 
crosses it at two white oaks and the stump of a third, from 
thence by a straight line a few hundred yards to Potts's Spring 
at the old Quarter place, from thence as the water runs to the 
river which is near to the upper part where Mr. Philip Payne 
lives is to be added the Long Island and other Islands, 
to the lower part the Overseer's residence and also one hun- 
dred and fifty acres of the back land out of the upper part 
most convenient for both parts for Timbers to the lower. 
These two estates to be [in] fee simple to two of my other sons 
by my said wife, whom she is also to name and point out. 
I will and direct that there be raised towards paying my 
debts one thousand pounds by sale in fee simple, out of 
my following Lands, viz. — Leathervvood, Prince Edward Lands, 
Kentucky Lands, Seven Island Lands, and those lately pur- 
chased of Marshall Mason, Nowell, Wimbush, Massy, and 
Prewett, or such parts thereof as my Executors may direct, 
and the residue thereof I will and direct to be allotted equally 

455 



APPENDIX 

in value into two parts for a provision for other two of my sons 
in fee simple by my said wife, which sons she shall in like 
manner name and point out. But if the payment of my 
debts is or can be accomplished without selling any of my 
slaves or personal estate, then I desire none of these Lands to 
be sold, but they are to be allotted as the provision aforesaid 
for two of my sons. Thus I have endeavored to provide for 
my six sons by my dear Dorethea ; their names are Patrick, 
Fayette, Alexander Spotswood, Nathaniel, Edward Winston, 
and John. I will my slaves to be equally divided amongst my 
children by my present wife except my daughter Winston, who 
has received hers, or nearly so ; but the twenty slaves given to 
my said wife for her life, I desire she may give as she pleases 
amongst her children by me. I will that my wife have power 
to execute Deeds for any Lands I have agreed to sell, in the 
most ample manner. I give to my Grandson Edmund Henry, 
when he arrives to the age of twenty one years and not before, 
in fee simple, the thousand acres of Land where his father 
died, joining Perego's line. Cole's line, and the line of the 
land intended for my son Edward, dec'd., together with the 
negroes and other property on the said one thousand acres 
of Land. But in case the said Edmund shall die under the 
age of twenty one years, and without Issue then alive, I will 
the said Land, Slaves, and other property to my six sons above 
mentioned equally in fee simple. I have heretofore provided 
for the children of my first marriage, but I will to my daughters, 
Roane and Aylett, two hundred pounds each of them as soon 
as my estate can conveniently pay it by cropping. In case 
either of my six sons, viz. — Patrick, Fayette, Alexander Spots- 
wood, Nathaniel, Edward Winston, or John, shall die under 
the age of twenty one, unmarried and without Issue then living, 
I will that the estate of such decedent be divided among the 
Survivors of them in such manner as my said wife shall direct. 
All the rest and residue of my estate, whether Lands, 
Slaves, personal estate. Debts and rights of every kind, I give 
to my ever dear and beloved wife Dorethea, the better to 
enable her to educate and bring up my Children by her, and 
in particular I desire she may at her discretion collect, ac- 
commodate, manage, and dispose of the debt due to me from 
the late Judge Wilson in such manner as she thinks best, 
without being accountable to any person, but so as that the 
produce, whether in Lands, Slaves, or other effects, be by 
her given amongst her children by me, as I do hereby direct 
all the said residue to be given by her after her decease. If 

456 



APPENDIX 

the said debt from the said Wilson can not be recovered, then 
I give the Lands I covenanted to sell to him, the said Wilson, 
lying in Virginia and North Carolina, to my said wife in fee 
simple to make the most of and apply for the benefit of her 
children by me as aforesaid. But in case my said wife shall 
marry again, in that case I revoke and make void every gift, 
legacy, authority, or power herein mentioned, and order, will, 
and direct. She, my said wife, shall have no more of my estate 
than she can recover by Law ; nor shall she be Guardian to any 
of my children, or Executrix of this my Will.* 

I will that my daughters, Dorethea S. Winston, M. Catha- 
rine Henry, and Sarah Butler Henry, be made equal in their 
negroes. In case the debt from Judge Wilson's estate be re- 
covered, I do desire and will that five hundred dollars each be 
paid to my dear Daughters, Anne Roane & Elizabeth Aylett, 
and Martha Fontaine. 

This is all the inheritance I can give to my dear family. The 
religion of Christ can give them one which will make them 
rich indeed. 

I appoint my dear wife Dorethea Executrix, my friends 
Edmund Winston, Philip Payne, and George D. Winston Exec- 
utors, of this my last Will, revoking all others. In witness 
whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this 20th No- 
vember, 1798. 

P. Henry, L. S. 

Codicil to my Will, written by myself throughout, and by 
me annexed and added to the said Will and made part thereof 
in manner following, that is to say : Whereas, since the making 
[of] my said Will, I have covenanted to sell my Lands on 
Leatherwood to George Hairston, including the 1000 acres 
intended for my Grandson Edmund Henry, and have agreed 
to purchase from General Henry Lee two shares of the Saura 
Town Lands, amounting to about 6,314 acres certain, and the 
debt due me from Wilson's estate is agreed to gO in payment 
for the said purchase, whereby there will exist no necessity 
to sell any of my estate for payment of my debts, I do there- 

* But Widow Dorothea did as she pleased. She married 
Judge Edmund Winston, Patrick Henry's cousin. That liti- 
gation followed is shown in Judge Roane's Memorandum. 
Court commissioners arranged a division of the various tracts 
of land. Colonel John Henry's letters to Wirt contain affec- 
tionate references to his aging mother, who elected to go to 
her grave, not as a Winston, but as a Henry. 

457 



APPENDIX 

fore give the said Saura Town Lands in fee simple equally to 
be divided in value to two of my sons by my dear wife 
Dorethea, and desire her to name the sons who are to take 
that estate, and it is to be in Lieu and place of the Leather- 
wood, Prince Edward, Kentucky, and Seven Islands, and other 
lands allotted for two of my sons in my said Will, so that 
the Red-hill estate. Long Island estate, and the Saura Town 
estate will furnish seats for my six sons by my wife. 

In case any part of my Lands be evicted or lost for want of 
title, I will that a contribution of my other sons make good 
such loss in Lands of equal value. 

I give to my Daughter Fontaine five hundred dollars ; to 
each of my Daughters, Anne Roane and Elizabeth Aylett, one 
thousand dollars; to my daughter Dorethea S. Winston, one 
thousand dollars, as soon as my estate can conveniently raise 
these sums. To my Daughters, Martha Catharine and Sarah 
Butler, I give one thousand pounds each, and these legacies to 
all and each of my daughters are to be in Lieu and place of 
everything before intended for them, and if it is not in the 
power of my Executors to pay my said Daughters their 
legacies in money from my estate, then and in that case all 
my said Daughters are to take property, real or personal, at fair 
valuation, for their legacies respectively. And to this end I 
give my Lands in Kentucky, Prince Edward, at the Seven 
Islands, all my Lands lately purchased near Falling River and 
its waters, containing about 17 or 1800 acres, and all others not 
mentioned herein, to my Executors for the aforesaid purpose of 
paying Legacies and for allowing my Grandson Edmund Henry 
eight hundred pounds in Lieu of the Leatherwood Lands in 
case he shall attain the age of twenty one years or marries, 
but not otherwise. His Land, if he has it at all, is to be in 
fee simple, as also all the Lands that may be allotted in Lieu 
of money are to go in fee simple. 

I also will that my said Dear wife shall at her discretion dis- 
pose of three hundred pounds worth of the said last mentioned 
Lands to any of her children by me, and finally of whatsoever 
residue there may happen to be after satisfying the foregoing 
demands, and that she shall have in fee simple all the residue 
of my estate, real or personal, not disposed of for the intent 
and purpose of giving the same amongst her children by me. 
If she chooses to set free one or two of my slaves, she is to 
have full power to do so. In case Judge Wilson's debt is lost by 
General Lee not taking it in payment, whereby the contract 
for Saura Town Lands becomes void, this Codicil is to become 

458 



I 



APPENDIX 

of no effect, and is to be void and null, and my Executors 
are to compensate the two of my sons to whom my Leather- 
wood Lands were to go, by the Lands sold to Judge Wilson, 
and they are in that case to have all the Lands directed to be 
joined with the Leather wood, and so much money as will make 
their Lotts equal in value with the Lotts of my other sons by 
my present wife. 

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal 
this I2th day of February, 1799. 

P. Henry, L. S. 

Indorsements : The within is my Will written throughout 
by my own hand this 20th November, 1798. 

P. Henry. 

The Codicil also written by myself, February 12th, 1799. 

P. Henry. 

At a Court held for Charlotte County the ist day of July, 
1799, this last Will and Testament of Patrick Henry, Esquire, 
dec'd., with the Codicil hereto annexed, was presented in 
Court by Edmund Winston, Gentleman, one of the Executors 
herein named, and there being no witness to the said Will or 
Codicil, Paul Carrington, Sen'r., and Paul Carrington, Jun'r., 
Gentlemen, being sworn, each deposed that they are well ac- 
quainted with the Testator's hand writing, and verily believes 
that the said Will and the Codicil annexed, and the name there- 
to subscribed, are all of the Testator's hand writing ; whereupon 
the said Will and Codicil are ordered to be recorded. On the 
motion of Dorethea Henry, the Executrix, and the said Ed- 
mund Winston and George D. Winston, two of the Executors 
therein named, who made oath according to Law, certificate is 
granted them for obtaining a probate of the said Will in due 
form, they giving security. Whereupon they with Joel Watkins, 
Paul Carrington, Jun'r., and Philip Payne, their securities, 
entered into and acknowledged their bond according to Law for 
that purpose, reserving liberty to Philip Payne, the other 
Executor named in the Will, to join in the probate thereof when 
he shall think fit 

Teste, Thomas Read, Cle. 
A true copy. 

Thomas Read, Cler. 



459 



Appendix D 



VERBATIM COPY OF INVENTORY & APPRAISEMENT 

OF ESTATE OF PATRICK HENRY IN THE 

COUNTY OF CHARLOTTE 

a/c Judge Roane. Roane vs. Henry — exhibit. 

In obedience to an order of Charlotte Court to us directed, 
we, being duly sworn, have appraised the estate of Col. Patrick 

Henry, dec'd., in current money this day of July, 1799- 

This estate in the County of Charlotte. 

I negro man Jessee, £200. 

I ditto ditto John, 100. 

I ditto woman, Pegg & her children, 

Shadrack, Nancy, Pleasant, Jessee, 

Reuben and Letty, 300. 

Dafney & her children, Tim (a) & Ned, 165. 

(a) valued by consent at £40. 

Milley and her child Joe, 100. 

Critty & her 3 children, Jack, 

Harrison & Coleman, 150. 

Girl, Tyree, 35- 

ditto Salley, 35- 

ditto Anny, 75- 

Alee, a young wench, 100. 

Dinah, an old woman, 40- 

Ceasar, a young fellow, 100. 

Peter, a negro man, 50- 

Bobb, a negro man, 120. 

Tom, a negro man, 120. 

Scotchman, a negro man, 120. 

Cato, a negro man, 120. 

Joe, a negro man, 100. 

Ciseley, a negro woman, 90. 

Daniel, a negro man, 120. 

Isaac, a negro man, 120. 

Doctor, a negro man, 10. 

Ben, a lad, 7o. 

461 



APPENDIX 

Fox, a lad, 70. 

Nel & her child Billey, 100. 

Little Gate, a girl, 70. 

Ben j v., a boy, 60. 

Little Daniel, do 60. 

John j r., a boy, 60. 

Sam, a boy, 60. 

Beck & her children, Robin, 

Pegg and Dinah, 130. 

Mary & her children, Phill, 

Sally, Abby, Gib & Squire, 185. 

Polly & her children, Abraham, 

Presey, Polly and Dicy, 135. 

Annekey & her children, Vilet, 

Fanny, Zebulon & Lewis, 175. 

Gager, a negro man, 175. 

Reubin, a negro man, 175. 

Solomon, a lad, 70. 

Aggy, a child, 3. 

old bay mare & colt 20. 

bay horse, 35. 

bay horse, 40. 

bay horse, '. . 36. 

bay horse, 33. 

gray mare filley, 20. 

bay mare & colt, 27.10 

bay mare filley, 40. 

gray horse colt, 20. 

dark bay horse, 25. 

bright bay horse, 25. 

old Rone horse, 5. 

bay mare, 30. 

gray horse, 20. 

dark bay do 30. 

old sorrel do 3. 

dark bay horse, 20. 

sorrel horse, 18. 

bay ditto 25. 

black do 10. 

I work steers, 82.10 

56 head of cattle of every description,... 338. 

55 hogs of every kind, 107-5 

60 head of sheep, 30- 

462 



APPENDIX 

9 axes, 2.12.6 

35 hoes, 7.12 

I chariot & harness for 4 horses, 100. 

I ride'g chair & harness, 18. 

3 mens saddles & bridles, 7.12 

1 womans do. do 6. 

3 ox carts, 9.12 

2 Lock chains, .18 

13 plows, hoes & gair, 11. 16 

3 hand saws, i.io 

I f row, .2.6 

4 chisels & 6 augers, 1.3 

I pr. old cart wheels, 1.5 

1 portmantua, i.io. 

1 candle stand, .15. 

2 four feet walnut tables, 4.16. 

I Walnut press, 6. 

I Tea bord, 3 waiters & i bre. basket,.. i. 5. 

I Walnut side bord, i. 4. 

1 ditto knife box, .4.6 

I flax hackell, 2. 

7 large Maps, 14. 

1 Arm & 12 plain Walnut chairs, 9.15. 

2 Walnut desks, 12. 

5 Small Walnut Tables, 6.12.6 

I Cheretree chest of drawers, 6. 

I Small Cabinet, 3. 

1 Walnut box & looking glass, .18. 

2 green winsor chairs, .12. 

I Walnut chest of drawers, 6. 6. 

I cheeck real & looking glass, .14. 

I parcel of chainey, glass & earthen ware, 12. 16.6 

I back gamon Table, 2. 8. 

I Pine Writing Desk, .6. 

I cradle, bed & furniture, .12. 

8 beds and furniture, 96. 

I pr. Damask bed Curtins, 9. 

II rush bottom chairs, i. 7.6 

I Carpitt, 9. 

I Silver ladle, 12 Table Spoons 

and 1 1 Tea ditto, 15. 

I Silver rim & casters, ,,,.,.. 13. 

463 



APPENDIX 

I Silver rim, 8. 

I ditto tea pott, 5. 

I ditto Salts, 1.4. 

8 Table cloths, 9.12. 

II knives & forks, .18. 

I large Gun, 4.10, 

I pr, pistols, 3. 

I pr. potracks, i gridiron, 1.4. 

1 frying pan & 2 iron tea kitles, ,17.6 

2 iron spoons & flesh forks, .3. 

I pr. old Steelyards & 2 iron Spits, .12. 

I pr. new do. i bell mettle skillet, 2. 2. 

A parcel of Tin ware, 3. 

One large pine press, i. 4, 

A parcel of Tubs, pails, &c 3. 

1 Loom, Warping bars, &c. &c 3. 

4 flatt irons & i flax wheel, .16. 

2 pine tables & 6 pr. cott. cards, 1.6. 

I fortepeano, 45. 

A parcel of rum hds. casks, &c 3. 6. 

4 jugs & I Gallon pott, 1.14. 

3 Spinning wheels, .14. 

Black smiths tools, 6. 

7 butter pots, 6 pewter basons, 

and 2 chamber potts, 2.17. 

1 large iron kittle, 3. 

3 Stills & a parcel of Still tubs, &c 76. 

4 pr. andirons & i iron tribute, 3-12.6 

2 bottle slides, 2 tea canisters, .13. 

4 trunks & 5 iron potts, 4.10, 

2 iron skillets, i do. kittle, 1.5. 

3 duch ovens, i. 

I pr. sheep shairs, .1.6 

7 candle sticks, 1.8. 

BOOKS: 

I Vol. Grotious on peace & War, 3. 

1 " Peire Williams' rep'ts, 4.10. 

2 " Strange's reports, 3. 

1 " Salkil's do 2. 8. 

2 Vernon's do 1.16. 

I Vol. Carthew's do i. i. 

5 " Modern do 3- 

I Equity Ca. in Talbot's time I. 4. 

464 



APPENDIX 

I " Virginia Laws, i. 

5 " Bacon's abridg'e in fol 9. 

3 " Crock's reports, 2. 8. 

I " Cumberback's do i. 

I " Parkhurst's Lexicon, i.io. 

3 " Cocke's Institutes, 2. 

I " Hardwick's reports, 2. 5. 

4 " Blackston's Comm'ty, 1.16. 

I " Equity Ca. in Talbot's time, i. 4. 

I " Centris reports, i. 

1 " Cocke's do 1.16. 

2 " Nelson's do 2. 8. 

I " Hawkins's Pleas of the Cro 3. 

I " Swinborn on Wills, .18. 

I " Rayman's reports, i. 

1 " Orphan's Legacy, .10. 

1 " Virginia Laws, .10. 

2 " Chalmers' CoUect'n of Treats. ... 1.4. 

2 " Coleman's Terance, .12. 

I " Ward's Es. on Gram 2. 

3 " Modern rep'ts, a brok'n sett, .... .18. 
I Entick's Dictionary, .3. 

1 Vol. Uses & trust, ,10. 

2 " Spirit of Laws, i. 

1 " American Negotiator, .6. 

1 Vol. Gibson's Guide, .4.6 

7 " Smallit's Hist'y of England, 2. 2. 

2 " Watson's Horrace, .10. 

1 " Paraphrase ... on the Eps. to 

the Romans, ' 1.4. 

3 " Beeldfield's Erudition, 2. 8. 

2 " Robertson Navega'n, .12. 

I " Buchan's Dom. Medicine, .15. 

3 " Adams' Defence of the American 

Constitution, .18. 

I " Impey's practice, .13. 

1 " Bland on Decipl'n, .6. 

2 " Ramsey's revolution S. Carol i. 

I " Milner's Greek Gram .7.6 

I " Junious's Letters, .7.6 

I " Life of Dr. Franklin, .4. 

1 " Breviarin Cronologe, . J.d 

2 " Newman's Chimistry, i. 

I " Juvenal, .10. 

30 465 



•^' 



APPENDIX 

" Don Quick Zotte, .6. 

" Watts' Hyms, .3. 

" Blair's Sermons, .10. 

" Decalo dis Mortis, . 2.6 

" Proceed'g & debates of Parlem't,. i. 4. 

" Munford's Poems, .6. 

" Cureosities of Spain, .7.6 

" Homeri Ilias, i. 

" D'Arsay, .2.6 

" Muir's Introduction, .3. 

Testament, .1.3 

Vol. Iradical Vocabulary, .7.6 

" History of Fra Engine, .1.6 

" Lord Shefield's Observa .6. 

" Dismal Fractions, .12. 

" Roman Antiquities, .12. 

" Ovid's Metamorphoses, .12. 

" Selctra profanus, .3. 

" Compleat Eng. Farmer, .10. 

" Monthly review, i.io. 

" Conspiracy, .3. 

" Spirit of Patriotism, .3. 

" Juvenalis, .2. 

" Selecta Colequorum, .1.6 

" History of England, .3. 

" Clark to Dodwell, .3. 

" Thompson's Fables, .2. 

" Brooker's Gazett'r, .10. 

" British Youth's Instructor, .5. 

" Robertson Crueso, .1.6 

" Art's Treas'r of Relig'n, .1.3 

" Gordin's Gram .6. 

Vol. Christian's Consolation, .2.6 

French Prayer Books, . 3- 

Vol. New art of War, .1.6 

" Abridgm't of the celebrated Mr. 
Pennett's discrip'n of the Brit. 

Capi'l, .3. 

Vol. Elphenston on Education, .2.6 

The American Constitu'n, . 3- 

Vol. Es. on Slavery, .2. 

" Introduction of the Gram • 1.6 

" All for the best, .1.6 

" Hyman Reason, • 1-6 

466 



APPENDIX 

" Debates of the Convent'n, .6. 

Munroe's review, .6. 

" Bonepartte's Camphain, .6. 

The Banished Man, .3. 

Spelling Dictionary, .3. 

Vol. Pleasing Instructor, .3. 

Infant's Lawyer, ,6. 

Antiquity of Greece, .7.6 

Jacobinism, .9. 

" Euclid's Elem'ts, .7.6 

Guthrie's Gram 1.4. 

Pronouncing Spelling Dictionary, ... .2. 

Vol. Leland's Demosthenes, ,12. 

Cocker's Arethmatick, 1.9. 

" Discorses on Religion, .3. 

" Pope's Poems, .2. 

large old Bible, .7, 

Vol. Page's Travels, .12. 

" Creden's Concordance, .18. 

" Glass's Cookery, .6. 

" Dillon's Travels thro Spain, .... .12. 

Modern Conveyancer, .7.6 

" Es. on Establishing a Standard,. . . ^.6 

" Mottes's Philosefical Transact'gs, .18. 

" Danvers' abridgment, i.io. 

" Ward's 4 Esays, .6. 

" Dr. Sydenham's Works, .3. 

" Ward's Mathematics, .12. 

" Parlem'y register, .12. 

" N. Test. Grecum, Hardy, i. 

" Preceptor, .12. 

" Barkley's Greek rudem'ts, .6. 

" Lex Parliment .10. 

" Tyrace's directions, .6. 

Wallace's Gram .6. 

Vol. Gibson's Fair'rs Guide, .6. 

" Treatise on the Mathematics, ... .6. 

" Sacred & profain history, i.io. 

" Johnson's dictionary, .12. 

Vol. Sum'y of the Crown Law, .6. 

" Buller's Nise prius, .10. 

" Scott's Lessons, .4. 

" Tisol on Phisick, .6. 

" Independant Wigg, .9. 

467 






APPENDIX 

I " Tillotson's Sermons, 

I " Aneckdotes on Frederick, 

1 " Education compleat, 

2 " Nature displayed, 

I " Junious' Letters, 

I " Noxe's Esays, 

4 " Pope's Odysey, 

3 " Contea Morax, 

I " Turkish Spy, 

I " Prophain History, 

I " Pender's works, 

A parcel of Greek & Lattin books, in our 

estimation worth 

I Vol. Chimistry, 

I " Modern Farmer's guide, 

I " Trials — Pais, 



3- 
3- 
3- 
6. 
6. 
6. 

12. 

9- 
1.6 

3- 
1.6 

i6. 
7.6 
3- 
3- 



5727.19.0 



D. Henry ^ 

E. Winston Vexrs. 
Geo. D. Winston J 



J. Scott 
W. Cooper 
Joe Marshall 



Memo. : This appraisement and Inventory differs in as 
much as that the Inventory given by Mrs. Henry was agree- 
able to the number of cattle turned out in the Spring and the 
appraisement being only for the number shown at the time of 
the appraisement. 

J. Scott 

Joe Marshall 

W. Cooper 

At a Court held for Charlotte County the 6th day of Sep- 
tember, 1802, this Inventory and appraisement of the estate 
of Patrick Henry, dec'd., in the County of Charlotte, was this 
day returned by Edmund Winston, one of the executors, and 
ordered to be recorded. 

Teste, Thomas Read, CI. 
A Copy. 
Thomas Read, Cler. 



468 



APPENDIX 



INVENTORY OF THE ESTATE OF PATRICK HENRY, 
ESQ., DECEASED 



At Red 


Hill, 


September nth, 1802. 


Negro Men. 






Doctor, Past labc 


)r 


Tom, prime of life 


Peter, decline of 


life 


Isaac, " 


Joe, past middle 


age 


Cajer, " 


Bob, " 


>j 


Jesse, " 


Daniel, prime of life 


John, " 


Scotchman, do. 




Cesar, " 


Cato, 




Fox, 


Negro Boys from 12 


TO 16. 




Jack 




Shadrack 


Daniel 




Sam 


Ben 




Solomon 


Island Ben 






Negro Women. 






Kate, past labor 




Anakey, prime of life 


Betty, 




Cecily, " 


Dinah, old woman 


Kate, 


Beck, decline of 


life 


Peg, 


Polly, 




Aylce, " 


Daphne, " 




Anne, " 


Mary, prime of 


life 


Critty, very infirm 


Nell, 






Negro Girls. 






Nancy 




Salley 


Negro Children. 






Pleasant 




Gib 


Jesse 




Squire 


Reuben 




Phil 


Lettie 




Violet 


Ned 




Fanny 


Jack White 




Zebulon 


Harrison 




Louis 


Coleman 




Billy 


Salley 




Patrick 


Robin 




Betsey 



469 





APPENDIX 


Negro Children (Continued). 




Dinah 




Simeon 


Abram 




Molley 


Priscy 




Hannah 


Polly 




Jim 


Dicy 




Peter 


Abby 







2 saddle horses, 12 yrs. likely 
I saddle horse, 5 yrs. likely 

3 bay horses, 12 yrs. stout & strong 
I sorrel, 12 yrs. middle size 

I bay, 17 yrs. middle size 
I gray, 4 yrs. middle size 
1 gray mare, 4 yrs. middle size 
I bay mare, 7 yrs. middle size 
I dark bay mare, 10 yrs. Do. 
I small bay mare, 18 yrs. 
I gray horse colt, 3 yrs. 
I gray mare colt, 3 yrs. 

1 black mare colt, 2 yrs. 

2 gray colts, i yr. 
2 suckling colts 

5 yoke of oxen 
128 head of cattle 
186 head of hogs 
38 head of sheep 

9 feather beds & furniture 

8 table cloths, part much worn 

1 black walnut Press 

2 black walnut desks 

2 black walnut square tables 
I black walnut Side board 

5 black walnut small tables 
I black walnut chest of drawers 
13 black walnut chairs 

3 Windsor chairs 

I Scotch carpet much worn 

Silver Plate. 
I ladle 

I doz. table spoons 
I doz. tea spoons 

470 



APPENDIX 

Silver Plate (Continued). 
I sett of castors 
I Rim 

1 teapot 

2 salt cellars 

Kitchen Furniture, 
1 small iron pot 
4 large iron pots with cracks & holes 

4 dutch ovens with broken lids 

I iron tea kettle hole in the top 
I iron tea kettle without top or handle 

1 large iron kettle 

3 pottle pewter basons 

2 pint pewter basons 

3 pottle basons & i old dish worth no more than old 
pewter 

2 pewter chamber pots 

7 large earthen dishes 

5 small earthen dishes 
I turene 

1 large china bowl 

2 small china bowls 

10 china tea cups & saucers of broken setts 

8 china coffee cups & saucers, the cups cracked & without 
handles chiefly 

Sundry other china & earthen ware, cracked & broke 

7 blue edged earthen breakfast plates 

8 white large earthen plates 
i6 blue edged earthen plates 

2 iron spits 

I iron skillet 

I bell metal skillet 

4 glass tumblers 

I doz. wine glasses 

I chariot & harness for 4 horses 

I single chair & harness, much worn 

1 sett of B. Smiths tools, indifferent 

I smooth boor gun 

3 spinning wheels 

I loom & furniture 
I glass wheel & hatchel 

6 pr of cards 

I back gammon table 

471 



APPENDIX 



4 pr andirons, much injured 

2 pr tongs & I shovel 

3 mens saddles very much worn 



I womans saddle 
4 trunks 

1 pine writing desk 

2 " tables 

1 large pine press 

6 butter pots & 4 jugs 

I 130 gallon still Virginia made 
I 30 gallon London still 
I large iron kettle 

1 gallon measure 

7 large maps 

2 ox carts & 2 chains 
I waggon & geer 

I tea board & 3 waiters 

I bread basket 

I candle stand broke 

I mahogany knife case (struck out on Mrs, Winston telling 

me it was a present to her from Capt. Joseph Scott.) 
I pine knife box & 8 old knives & forks 
I pr horsemans pistols, broken locks 
I check reel 
I large decanter 

1 small 

2 tea canisters 

2 bottle sliders 

4 flat irons, very indifferent 

4 screw augers 

I hand saw 

I pr sheep sheers 

3 nice brass candlesticks 

4 iron candlesticks 
3 pr snuffers 

I crosscut & I whip-saw 

1 brass scale 

2 bar-sheer plows 
I fan mill 

I case of bottles 

I sett of damask bed curtains, very much worn 

plantation utensils for 22 hands 

3 looking glasses, 2 somewhat injured and small 

472 



APPENDIX 

The stock of cattle at the Seven Islands when it was broke 
up were not removed; the number at that time was 39, one of 
which is since dead. 

Mrs. Winston before her marriage gave a yoke of oxen 
& 4 cows & calves to Mrs. Campbell out of the above men- 
tioned number. 

I have not seen the above mentioned stock since last spring, 
but if no accident has happened to them there are about 28. 

William Cooper 



473 



r 



i 



Index 



Adams, Charles Francis, on 
Henry's oratory, 162-163. 

Adams, Henry, quoted, 331; 
424-425. 

Adams, John, on the assem- 
bhng of the First Continen- 
tal Congress, 1 51-153; as a 
diarist, 155-156; his de- 
scriptions of delegates, 157; 
tells of Henry's opening 
speech, 162; of the business 
of Congress, 168; his opin- 
ion of Henry, 174; describes 
the Rutledges, 174-175; 
spends evening with Henry, 
175; notes the social side of 
things, 175-176; on Henry's 
prescience, 178-179; 251; 
Henry's letter to, on inde- 
pendence, 253-254; wit of, 
254; on Thomas Paine, 255,; 
writes "Thoughts on Gov- 
ernment," 262; 338, 409; 
names Henry Envoy to 
France, 414. 

Adams, John Quincy, ques- 
tionable story in "Diary" 
of, 308. 

Adams, Samuel, 127; com- 
pared with Henry, 132-133; 
leadership in Massachusetts, 
143-144; 149; sagacity in 
Continental Congress, 166, 
171-172; 251. 



47 



Alexander, Rev, Archibald, 
describes Henry, 119; 352; 
on Henry in court, 382-385; 
422. 

Alien and Sedition laws, 407. 

Annapolis Conference, watched 
by Henry, 333; paves the 
way for Constitutional Con- 
vention, 336. 

Atkinson, Roger, describes 
Virginia delegates in First 
Continental Congress, 153- 

154- 

Aylett, Mrs. Elizabeth, Hen- 
ry's letters to, 395-396; an- 
other letter to, 412-413. 

Bacon, Nathaniel, resists Ber- 
keley, 77-78. 

Bancroft, George, quoted, 
103, 132, 362. 

Baptists, Henry's relations 
with, 125-126. 

Barre, Isaac, speech, 103. 

Berkeley, Norbome, Baron 
de Botetourt, placatory 
character of, 134. 

Berkeley, Sir William, hangs 
Drummond, 77-78. 

Bernard, Sir Francis, 106. 

Bill of Rights, framed and 
adopted in the May Con- 
vention of 1776, 261 et 
seq. 

Blair, Archibald, 415, 417, 

5 



INDEX 



Bland, Richard, in House of 
Burgesses, 76; 90, 97, iii, 
130, 143, 153, 184, 186, 219, 
256. 

Bland, Colonel Theoderick, 
letter from St. George Tuc- 
ker to, criticising Henry, 
281. 

BoLLiNG, Powhatan, 420. 

Boston, in 1761, 89-90; stir- 
ring times in, 104-105; 133; 
Port bill, 141, 180. 

Boucher, Rev. Jonathan, 
quoted, 245-246, 248. 

BouLDiN, James W., 390 

BouLDiN, Powhatan, quoted, 
394(n). 

Bradley, Arthur Granville, 
27. 53. 80. 

Braxton, Carter, offended by 
Henry, 205-208; 219, 221- 
222; his plan of govern- 
ment, 262; 283, 307. 

Breckenridge, John, 311. 

British Debt Cause, 386, et seq. 

Brock, Robert A., on John 
Henry's descendants, 22(n), 
342 (n). 

Brooks, Nathan C, his Latin 
life of Henry, 33. 

Brougham, Lord, the Robert- 
son strain in, 21; on the 
American Revolution, 108; 
116, 270. 

Brown, Alexander, historical 
views stated, 11-12 (n). 

Brown, Henry Armitt, Henry 
in the First Continental 
Congress, 163 (n). 



Bruce, Philip A., studies of, 
1 2 (n) ; colonial taverns, 
48. 

Burgesses, House of, and the 
King, 62-63; i^ Stamp Act 
times, 81, et seq.; Journals 
of, 112 (n), 128-129; char- 
acter of, 128; expiration of, 
210. 

Burgoyne, General John, 285, 
290, 301. 

BuRK, John Daly, historian, 
his report of Henry's Stamp 
Act speech, 96 (n); 186. 

Burke, Edmund, 88; his plea 
for America, 182, 330. 

BuRNABY, Rev. Andrew, 54. 

Bute, Lord, &$, et seq. 

Butler, Bishop Joseph, 366. 

Byrd, Colonel William, fit for 
novel, 14; visits Mrs. Sarah 
Syme, 15-16; catches tone 
of his time, 17. 

Byron, Lord, on Henry, 127. 

Cabell, Dr. George, 425, et 
seq. 

Cabell, William, of Union 
Hill, in House of Burgesses, 
81; 219, 

Cabell, Judge William H., 
242 (n). 

Camden, Lord, on Congress, 
150, 174. 

Camm, Rev. John, anecdote 
of, 60-61; Maury to, 72. 

Campbell, Alexander, in Brit- 
ish Debt Case, 387. 

Campbell, Colonel Arthur, 
316. 



476 



INDEX 



Campbell, Charles, historian, 
quoted, 62, 74, 277, 287. 

Campbell, Thomas, the poet, 
402. 

Campbell, General William, 
marries Henry's sister Eliz- 
abeth, 236; stories of, 236- 

237; 395- 
Carpenters' Hall, described, 

157-159- 

Carrington, Colonel Clement, 
420. 

Carrington, General Ed- 
ward, at St. John's Church, 
198. 

Carrington, Judge Paul, in 
House of Burgesses, 81, 97, 
99, 219-220. 

Carter, Landon, his queru- 
lous letter to Washington 
about Henry, 280, 282; 299. 

Carter, Robert, client of 
Henry, 369. 

Cary, Archibald, described, 
81; 256; alleged threat 
against Henry, 276-277; 
278; 279. 

Cavalier element in Virginia, 
dispute thereon, lo-ii. 

Charlotte County, calls for In- 
dependence, 251; great po- 
litical meeting at Court 
house in, 419, et seq. 

Chase, Samuel, in Continental 
Congress, 171, 172. 

Chastellux, Chevalier de, 
249' 310, 375. 

Chatham, Lord, greatness of, 
86; 87, 127; Henry com- 



pared with, 130-132; 147; 
148; tribute to the First 
Continental Congress, 151; 
174, 181. 

Cherokees, stirred to war, 294. 

Christian, Colonel William, 
as law student with Henry, 
114; as Henry's brother- 
in-law, 234, 235, 236, 294, 
305; is killed by Indians, 

334-335 (n). 

Clay, Henry, a Hanover boy, 
40; story by, 288. 

Clark, General George Rog- 
ers, is aided by Henry in the 
conquest of the Northwest 
Territory, 293, et seq.; 297. 

Clinton, George, plan for a 
convention to amend Con- 
stitution, 358. 

Committees of Correspond- 
ence, origin of, 139, 143- 
144. 

Committee of Safety, 219, et 
seq.; 234, 257. 

Congress, Continental, origin- 
ates in Committees of Cor- 
respondence, 139; Massa- 
chusetts delegates en route 
to, 144, 1 51-153; Virginia 
delegates described, 1 53- 
154; and on the way to Phil- 
adelphia, 155-156; members 
of, 157, et seq.; organizes, 
162; Henry's first speech in, 
162-165; and second speech, 
165-166; gives each colony 
equal voice, 167; stands by 
Massachusetts, 168; consid- 



477 



INDEX 



ers the Galloway plan, 169- 
170; its work, 169, et seq.; 
wisdom of, 173-174; Second 
Congress, 213, et seq.; Hen- 
ry's attempts to help, 332. 

Connolly, John, as Henry's 
antithesis, 200. 

Constitution of the United 
States, 327-330; conven- 
tion to frame proposed, 336; 
adopted, 339; debates on in 
Virginia, 327, et seq. 

Constitution of Virginia, 
framed in the May Conven- 
tion of 1776, 261-269. 

Conway, Moncure D., 331, 
333 ; on E. Randolph's inno- 
cence, 336. 

Conway, General Thomas, or- 
ganizes a cabal against 
Washington, 288, et seq. 

CooKE, John Esten, on "Old 
Capitol," 92 (n); 210; on 
Henry's power as an orator, 

259- 

CooTEs (or Coutts), Mr. Hen- 
ry's first client, compares 
young Patrick to Lord Lov- 
at, 73. 

Corbin, Francis, 118, 344; 
ridicules Henry and is over- 
whelmed, 360-362; 436. 

CoRBiN, Richard, 204, 208. 

Cornbury, Lord, scene in his 
Council Chamber, New York, 

52-53- 

CoRNWALLis, Lord, 301-310. 

Crawford, Thomas, his Hen- 
ry statue, 118, 119. 



Cummins, E. H., quoted, 328. 

Dabney, Charles, 180, 205, 
429. 

Dabney, George, quoted about 
Henry, 38, 116, 124, 202, 
204-205, 429. 

Dandridge, Bartholomew, 
Henry's letter to, 238; 257. 

Dandridge, Dorothea Spots- 
wood, mother-in-law of Pat- 
rick Henry, 318-319. 

Dandridge, Colonel Nathan- 
iel W., Henry at house of, 
43-44; employs Henry as 
counsel, 75; becomes Hen- 
ry's father-in-law, 318. 

Davies, Rev. Samuel, Henry's 
model in oratory, 56-58. 

Dawson, John, 344, 352. 

Deane, Silas, on Virginia del- 
egates, 156-157; on Henry 
as a speaker, 167-168. 

"Decius," attacks Henry, 363, 

437- 

Dickinson, John, in Stamp 
Act Congress, 106; 134; his 
character and political posi- 
tion, 159-160; draws ad- 
dress to King George, 170- 
171; 213; his attitude on 
Independence, 252. 

Dictator of Virginia, alleged 
scheme for in December, 
1776, 275, et seq.; in the 
Tarleton Crisis, 308-309. 

Digges, Dudley, on Commit- 
tee of Safety, 219, 220. 

Dresser, Rev. Charles, 
366 (n). 



478 



INDEX 



DuANE, James, in Continen- 
tal Congress, 157, 336. 

DuNMORE, Lord, 135; charac- 
ter of, 138; 140, 179; seizes 
gunpowder, 199, et seq.; 
beaten at Great Bridge, 
221-222; 232; 272-273; 294. 

Fauquier, Gov. Francis, and 
the Twopenny Act, 62 ; 
gives musical parties, 79; 
93, 99, loi, 104. 

Fee Books, 49, 115. 

Fleming, John, 95. 

Fontaine, Edward, 187, 
366 (n), 386, 436 (n). 

Fontaine, Mrs. Martha, Hen- 
ry's daughter, 238, 425. 

Fontaine, Colonel Patrick 
Henry, 293, 366 (n), 386; on 
Henry's habits, 404-405; 
describes Henry's death 
scene, 426-428. 

FisKE, John, 12 (n), 63, 330. 

Foote, Rev. William, quoted, 
52, 125 (n). 

Force, Peter, cited, 181. 

Francisco, Peter, 302. 

Franklin, Benjamin, pro- 
poses Colonial Congress, 
105; 149; in Second Con- 
gress, 213; 233; on the Fed- 
eral Constitution, 339-340. 

France, aid expected from, 
177-178; deference to in 
the matterof Independence, 
252-253, 259; effect of alli- 
ance with, 299-300. 

Friedenwald, Herbert, 
quoted, 251. 



French Revolution, 367, 411- 
412. 

Frothingham, Richard, quo- 
ted, 1 01, 103. 

Gadsden, Christopher, at 
Stamp Act Congress, 106- 
107. 

Gage, General Thomas, in 
New York, 106; in Boston, 
124; 199. 

Gallatin, Albert, is advised 
by Henry, 293. 

Galloway, Joseph, character 
of, 159; plan of government 
in America, 169-170. 

Garland, Hugh, A. quoted, 424. 

Gates, General Horatio, 290, 
292. 

George HI, 84 el seq. ; 93, 108, 
132, 181. 

Gerry, Elbridge, 339; "ger- 
rymandering," 359. 

GiRARDiN, Louis Hue, his- 
torian, quoted, 209; on Dic- 
tatorship, 276, 308. 

Gordon, Rev. William, quo- 
ted, 101-102. 

Grayson, Senator William, 
311, 339; in Virginia Fed- 
eral Convention, 344; is 
elected United States Sena- 
tor, 359; dies, 363. 

Greene, General Nathanael, 
his military studies, 230; 
for independence after Bun- 
ker Hill, 254; 301-303. 

Grenville, George. 80; elab- 
orates the Stamp Act, 88 
et seq. 



479 



INDEX 



Grigsby, Hugh Blair, on cav- 
aliers, lo; on Virginia celeb- 
rities, 80; 99, 108, 135, 
187; on Henry's committee 
work, 261; on Mason, 268- 
269; on Jefferson, 274; 277; 
on Henry and Comwallis, 
302; 318 (n); 341 (n); his 
history of the Virginia Fed- 
eral Convention, 342 (n). 

GuARDOQUi, Don Diego, his 
project to acqtiire the Miss- 
issippi Valley for Spain, 334 ; 

337. 338. 

HAMiLTON,Alexander,332,336, 
338; his Assumption Act, 
363; 401-402 (n), 407-408. 

Hamilton, Colonel Henry, is 
captured by Clark, 296. 

Hampden-Sidney College, 
Henry's interest in, 312; 
incident at, 341; 421. 

Hancock, John, 124, 149, 213; 
chagrin of when Washing- 
ton was made Commander- 
in-chief, 216; 370. 

Hanover County, colonial 
merry-making in, 13 ; Court- 
house, 66; holds represent- 
atives responsible, 129-130; 
left by Henry, 250; Han- 
over Town, 281. 

Harrison, Benjamin, in 
House of Burgesses, 81 ; 143, 
154, 216; as Speaker of the 
Assembly, 305; is succeeded 
by Henry as Governor, 316; 
in Virginia Federal Con- 
vention, 344, et seq. 



Harrison, Mrs. Matthew 

Bland, 246, 399 (n). 
Hazleton, John H., quoted, 

255- 

Hunt, Gaillard, quoted, 261. 

Henderson, Richard, claims 
Kentucky, 295. 

Henry, David, of the Gentle- 
man's Magazine, 33. 

Henry, Dorothea Dandridge, 
second wife of Patrick, mar- 
riage of, 318-320; 324-325, 
380, 428; her marriage to 
Judge Winston, 457. 

Henry, Elizabeth, sister . of 
Patrick, 235-237. 

Henry, John, the immigrant, 
father of Patrick, marries, 
2 1 ; character of, 2 2 ; de- 
scendants, 22; starts sons 
in business, 36; presiding 
magistrate, trial of "Par- 
sons' Cause," 67-74; map of 
Virginia by, 11 2-1 13 (n); 
dies, 113. 

Henry, Colonel John, son of 
Patrick, opinion of Wirt's 
"Sketches," 29 (n); 390, 
399; 457 (n). 

Henry, Rev. Patrick, settles 
in Hanover, 23; "Uncle 
Patrick," 32, at Hanover 
Court-house, 66-67; death- 
of, 238. 

Henry, Patrick, lineage, 16- 
23; birth, 24; schooling, 24- 
25; boyhood traits, 25-35; 
reading, 32-34; storekeeper, 
36; store-book of, 38-39; 



480 



INDEX 



marries Sarah Shelton, 40; 
as fanner, 41-42; second 
mercantile venture, 42-43; 
studies law, 45; is licensed 
to practice, 45-47; bar- 
keeping, story about, 48; 
fee-books, 49 ; in " Parsons' 
Cause," 65-74; at Williams- 
burg in the case of Dan- 
dridge vs. Littlepage, 75-76; 
enters House of Burgesses 
as a member from Louisa, 
77-78; opposes public-loan 
scheme, 82-84; advocates 
resistance against the en- 
forcement of the Stamp 
Act, 91, et seq.\ his resolu- 
tions against Stamp Act, 
94-95; in "bloody debate" 
against, 95-98; rhemoran- 
dum on back of Resolutions, 
100; effect of his resistance 
speech, 105, et seq.; com- 
pared with Otis, 109-110; 
his celebrity, 112; his life 
in Louisa County, 113-115; 
his practice, 11 5-1 16; por- 
traits of him, 1 1 7-1 19; per- 
sonal appearance , 120-122; 
voice, 123; dress, 124; habits 
124; relations with Quakers 
and Baptists, 125-126; his 
oratory likened to that of 
Demosthenes, 127; his early 
leadership, 128-130; sent 
to the Convention of 1774, 
143; to Congress, 143; rides 
north with Washington, 
154-156; his eloquence in 

481 



Carpenters' Hall, 162-166; 
Silas Deane on, 167-168; 
opposes Galloway plan, 169; 
on Committee to prepare 
the address to the King, 
1 7 o- 1 7 1 ; his committee 
work, 173; on the greatest 
man in the First Congress, 
174; talks with John Adams, 
175; foresees Independence, 
177-178; foresees war, 178- 
179; organizes Hanover mi- 
litia, 180; attends Second 
Virginia Convention, 182; 
introduces resolutions to 
arm the colony, 183-184; 
delivers his greatest oration, 
1 89-1 9 1 ; effect of his speech 
191-193; his manner de- 
scribed, 193-196; speech to 
Hanover militia, 203 ; his 
Gunpowder Expedition, 

203, et seq.; in Second Con- 
gress, 212-216; in Third 
Virginia Convention, 217; 
made Colonel of the First 
Regiment and Virginia 
Commander-in-Chief, 218; 
friction with Pendleton, 
221, et seq.; resigns, 224- 
225; addressed by officers, 
225-226; his military ca- 
pacity considered, 230-231; 
at the turning point of his 
career, 233; loses his wife, 
238; at "Scotchtown," 238, 
et seq.; gives advice to his 
daughter on her marriage, 
243-244; his treatment of 



INDEX 



I 



his slaves, 245; his letter to 
R. Pleasants on slavery, 
246-247; is sick, 249-250; 
sells "Scotchtown," 250; is 
elected to the Fifth Conven- 
tion, 251; his cautious atti- 
tude on Independence, 252; 
et seq.\ leads popular party, 
257; speech for Independ- 
ence, 259-260; letters to R. 
H. Lee and John Adams, 
262-263; cooperates with 
Mason, 265, et seq.; author 
of the 15th and i6th sec- 
tions of the Bill of Rights, 
266-267; favors veto power, 
268; is elected first Com- 
monwealth Governor, 270; 
installed in the ' ' Palace ' ' at 
Williamsburg, 272; his hard 
work as Governor, 273; his 
illness, 274; strange story as 
to giving him dictatorial 
powers, 275, et seq.; is criti- 
cised by Landon Carter, 
280; by St. George Tucker, 
281-284; his measures for 
the defense of Virginia, 284; 
his letters to and from 
Richard Henry Lee and 
Washington, 286; efforts to 
draw him into the Conway 
Cabal, 290-291; and his let- 
ters to Washington on the 
subject, 291-292; encour- 
ages George Rogers Clark 
to undertake the conquest 
of the Northwest, 293, et 
seq.; retires from the gov- 

482 



ernorship, 298; his letter to 
Mason, 300; to Jefferson, 
300; in Henry County, 302; 
at Charlottesville with the 
Legislature, 303; flight of 
305-306; offends Jefferson, 
307-309; his work in the 
Assembly after the Revo- 
lutionary war, 310, et seq.; 
advocates the return of the 
Tories, 312-314; against too 
much taxation, 315; suc- 
ceeds Harrison as Governor, 
316; his marriage to Doro- 
thea Dandridge, 318; at 
Leatherwood, 320, et seq.; 
and the Federal Constitu- 
tion, 327, et seq.; his atti- 
tude up to 1786 and why he 
changed it, 330-335; ef- 
forts to induce him to go to 
the Philadelphia Conven- 
tion, 336-337; Washing- 
ton's attempt to placate 
him, 340; his powerful 
speeches in the Virginia 
Federal Convention, 344, 
ct seq.; attacks upon him, 
350-351; his thunder-storm 
speech, 354; his acquies- 
cence in the result, 357; is 
feared by the Federalist 
leaders, 358; and "gerry- 
mandering," 359; as a law- 
yer, 365, et seq.; his books, 
365-367 (and Appendix D); 
his large fees, 370; his love 
of money, 371; anecdotes 
about, 372, et seq.; his ridi- 



INDEX 



cule of "Johnny" Hook, 
375-377; his power in crim- 
inal cases, 378-379; in the 
Richard Randolph case, 
380-382; in the British 
Debt case, 38^-392; retires 
to Red Hill, 393, et seq.; his 
land investments, 400-402 ; 
his habits in old age, 403, 
et seq.; his favorite servants, 
405-406; his political views 
at this time, 406; and Jeffer- 
son 408-412; his letter to 
Mrs. Aylett, 412-413; many 
honors offered him, 414; 
helps Marshall , 415-416; 
and Washington, 416-419; 
offers for the Assem.bly, 419, 
et seq.; his last public ap- 
pearance, 419-425; his 
death, 426-428; his charac- 
ter sketched by Judge 
Spencer Roane, 435, et seq.; 
his will, 455-459. 

Henry, Mrs. Sarah Shelton, 
first wife of Patrick, mar- 
ried, 40; family, 40 (n); 
dies, 238. 

Henry, Mrs. Sarah Winston, 
mother of Patrick, de- 
scribed, 15-19; descendants, 
22 (n); children, 24; only 
letter by, 237-238; death 
of, 238. 

Henry, William Wirt, his 
searching study of his 
grandfather's life, 29-30; 
on barkeeping story, 48; 
109, 117-118, 120; on the 



peril of the Galloway plan, 
169; 202; on Mason, Henry 
and the Bill of Rights, 265, 
et seq.; on the Dictatorship, 
278; 335. 352; on the de- 
bates in the Virginia Fed- 
eral Convention, 363-364; 
380, 385; on the British 
' Debt case, 391; 426 (n). 
Henry County, 302; Patrick 
Henry's residence in, 320- 

323- 

Holcombe, Colonel John, ad- 
vises Henry to return to the 
bar, 324. 

Hook, John, his amusing 
case, 375-377- 

HosMER, James K., quoted, 
144. 

Howe, Henrj^ historian, 375, 

392, 399- 

HowisoN, Robert, historian, 
quoted, 73 (n) ; 79, 96. 

Independence, Henry as the 
prophet of, 177-178; his 
peculiar position on, 251, 
et seq.; Virginia delegates in 
Congress directed to "pro- 
cure" a declaration of, 258; 
moved by R. H. Lee, 260. 

Innes, James, in the Vir- 
ginia Federal Convention 
344, 441; in the British 
Debt Case, 387. 

Iredell, Judge James, his 
letter from Pierce Butler 
on the beginning of section- 
alism, 2>Z2)'y i^ t^6 British 
Debt case, 390-392; 417, 



483 



INDEX 



Jackson, General Andrew, 
sees Henry, 368. 

James, Edward W., quoted, 
92 (n). 

Jarratt, Rev. Devereux, 
colonial teacher in Hanover, 
24-25. 

Jay, John, in the Continental 
Congress, 169, 173; 213; Ifis 
treaty with Guardoqui, 334; 
335; when Chief Justice, 
390-391. 

Jefferson, Thomas. first 
meets Henry, 42-43; tells 
of Henry's examination for 
the law, 4 5 ; bartender story, 
48; and Wirt, 49; fees, 50; 
and Fauquier, 79; on Pen- 
dleton, 82; on Henry's im- 
pressiveness in combating 
the Robinson loan-office 
scheme, 82-84; describes 
Stamp Act scenes, 96, 99; 
108; on Henry's leadership, 
III, 136; on patriot proce- 
dure in Dunmore's time, 
137; his "Summary View," 
138; on origin of Commit- 
tees of Correspondence, 139- 
142; on Henry in the First 
Congress, 1 71-172, 180, 199; 
belittles Henry's work in 
the Second Congress, 214- 
<2i5; 216, 217, 233, 248; 
writes Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, 260; his plan of 
government for Virginia, 
262; attacks the laws of 
primogeniture and entail, 



274-275; his story as to 
Dictatorship, 275, et seq.; 
281, 296; succeeds Henry as 
Governor of Virginia, 298; 
is powerless to check Brit- 
ish depredations, 303; hu- 
miliation of, 304, et seq.; 
blames Henry for an inves- 
tigation resolution, 307- 
308; 331, 332; in France, 
337; his Poplar Forest place 
368; 400-401 (n); and Hen- 
ry, 407-411. 

Jenyns, Soame, 365. 

Johnson, Thomas, champions 
Henry in the May Conven- 
tion of 1776, 257. 

Johnson, William, burgess 
succeeded by Henry in 1765, 

79- 
Johnston, George, supports 
Henry in Stamp Act fight, 

93. 95- 
Jones, Joseph, 332. 
JouETTE, Captain John, 

warns Jefferson and the 

Assembly, 303; 305. 
Kentucky resolutions, 407. 
Lafayette, General, makes 

friends with Henry, 293; 

campaigns in Virginia, 301. 
Lamb, General John, 344. 
Latrobe, B. H., his Henry 

sketches, 118, 120. 
Laurens, Henry, President of 

Congress, anecdote of, 288. 
Lear, Tobias, 362. 
" Leatherwood," Henry's 

home at, 320-323. 



484 



INDEX 



Lecky, William E. H., quoted, 
130. 

Lee, General Charles, on In- 
dependence, 252-253; his 
machinations against Wash- 
ington, 289, et seq. 

Lee, Francis Lightfoot, 141; 
Henry's letter to on gun- 
powder expedition, 209. 

Lee, General Henry, from 
college to army, 231; 245, 
326; in the Virginia Federal 
Con vention , 344; brings 
Washington and Henry to- 
gether, 418; 452. 

Lee, Richard Henry, in the 
House of Burgesses, 82 ; 90- 
91; 127, 134, 141, 143, 153; 
his labors in Continental 
Congress, 170, 173; 179, 183, 
188, 252-253; moves the 
Independence of the United 
States, 260; 262, 265; corre- 
sponds with Patrick Henry, 
286; his great services in the 
Revolution, 287; friendship 
with Henry, 287; the "Lee 
scandal," so-called, 287- 
288, 310; as Henry's friend- 
ly antagonist, 310, et seq.; 
anecdote of, 316; 331, be- 
comes United States Sena- 
tor, 359; 371, 407. 442-444. 

450- 
Lee, General Robert E., his 
maternal grandfather, 1 6 ; 

230; 319- 
Lee, Thomas Ludwell, 219, 
257; wants all State Con- 



stitutions on imiform model, 

261; 265, 275, 287. 
Leonard, Daniel, 132. 
Lewis, Andrew, described, 

218; 260; crushes Dunmore, 

273- 

Lewis, Charles, 218. 

Lewis, John, encourages Hen- 
ry to study law, 45; counsel 
in "Parsons' Cause," 65. 

Lewis, Thomas, 99. 

Lewis, William, and Henry, 
306. 

LiTTLEPAGE, James, his seat 
contested, 75. 

Livingston, Philip, in Con- 
tinental Congress, 157. 

Livingston, William, in Con- 
tinental Congress, 157. 

Long Island, one of Henry's 
homes, 394, et seq. 

Louisa County, Henry's resi- 
dence in, 112, et seq. 

Lowndes, Rawlins, 355. 

Lynch, Thomas, in Stamp 
Act Congress, 106; in Conti- 
nental Congress, 157. 

Lyons, Mrs. Elizabeth Henry, 
399 (n); her Red Hill pen 
pictures, 405. 

Lyons, Judge Peter, King's 
counsel in the "Parsons' 
Cause," 65, 68, 71, 72, 74; 
amusing adventure of, 303- 
304; 400. 

Madison, Dolly, Isaac Wins- 
ton's great-granddaughter, 
20; spent childhood at 
"Scotchtown," 240-241. 



485 



INDEX 



Madison, James, in the May 
Convention of 1776, 256; 
311; and the Federal Con- 
vention, 329-330; 332, 336, 
337; in the Virginia Federal 
Convention, 343, et seq.; 
elected to Congress, 3 63 ; 
407, 450-451. 

Makemie, Rev. Francis, 
founder of Presbyterian- 
ism in America, 52. 

Marshall, John, on biogra- 
phers, 30; loi, 118, 188; 
lieutenant under Henry, 
220; 311, 335, 339; in the 
Virginia Federal Conven- 
tion, 344, et seq.; in the 
British Debt case, 387; 
aided by Henry in his Con- 
gressional campaign, 415- 
416. 

Martin, Luther, 356. 

Mason, George, 134; on Hen- 
ry, 140-141; in the Third 
Virginia Convention, 217; 
on Committee of Safety, 
219; described, 264; appears 
in the May Convention of 
1776 and becomes the gen- 
ius of the hour, 264, et seq.; 
chief author of the Bill of 
Rights, 265-266; tributes 
to, 268-269; 275, 296, 311; 
317 (n), 328, 329, 330, 338; 
in Virginia Federal Conven- 
tion, 344 et seq.; 367, 372, 
407. 

Massachusetts, 102; Revolu- 
tionary spirit in, 104-105; 



at school to S. Adams, 133; 
applauded, 134; exit of 
Loyalists from, 210. 

Matthews, General Edward, 
his invasion of Virginia, 284. 

Maury, Rev. James, plaintiff 
in the "Parsons' Cause," 
59-60; 61; his school, 64; 
in Court, 65-72; 104. 

Mazzei, Philip, 410. 

McClurg, Dr. James, 339, 448. 

McDowALL, Arthur S., quo- 
ted. 131. 

McRee, G. J., quoted, 390. 

Meade, Bishop William, quo- 
ted, 54; 62, 366 (n). 

Meade, Captain W. T., tells of 
Henry in Louisa County, 
113-114. 

Mercer, General Hugh, 218. 

Meredith, Colonel Samuel, 
on Henry's boyhood, 25 
and Appendix A ; with Hen- 
ry at Hanover Court-house, 
66; 113; on Gunpowder Ex- 
pedition, 204, et seq.; 235, 
242, 319; statement of, 431, 
et seq. 

Miller, John, 421. 

Mississippi, proposed occlu- 
sion of, 333, et seq.; referred 
to by Henry in the constitu- 
tional debates, 348; 410. 

Monroe, James, letter from 
that powerfully influenced 

Henry, 333-334; 339; i^i 
Virginia Federal Conven- 
tion, 344, et seq.; Jefferson 
to, 409. 



486 



INDEX 



Montgomery, James, his al- 
leged authorship of the 
"Decius" letters, 363. 

MoRDECAi, Samuel, quoted, 
342. 

Morris, Samuel, built first 
dissenters' "reading house," 
Hanover, 56; juror in "Par- 
sons' Cause," 68. 

"Mount Brilliant," Henry's 
boyhood home, 23, 24, 36, 
112, 239. 

Muhlenberg, Peter Gabriel, 
hears Henry's resistance 
speech, 188. 

Navy, Virginia's Revolution- 
ary, 284. 

Nelson, General Thomas, in 
St. John's Church, 197- 
198; moves Independence in 
the May Convention of 
1776, 258-259; 270, is made 
Governor, 307; 323. 

Nelson, Judge Hugh, 33. 

New London Court-house, fa- 
mous trials there, 375. 

New York, 9; Stamp Act agi- 
tation in, 104; meeting 
there of the Stamp Act Con- 
gress, 106-107; visited by 
Henry, 130; Federal Con- 
vention of, 343. 

Nicholas, George, 307, 309, 
332, 344, et seq. 

Nicholas, John, said to have 
written the "Decius" pa- 
pers, 363, 437. 

Nicholas, Robert Carter, 45- 
47 ; 81 , hi; turns over law 



practice to Henry, 116; 184, 
186; as peacemaker, 200, 
204. 

Nicholas, Wilson, 344, et seq. 

North, Lord, 133; concilia- 
tory proposals, 210. 

Otis, James, speech against 
search warrants, 63 ; fiery 
eloquence of, 89-90; 102, 
105, 106; and Henry, 109- 
iio, 132. 

Oliver, Frederick Scott, quo- 
ted, 192. 

Page, John, 16; and Dun- 
more, 200; 219; 273. 

Paine, Thomas, as exciseman, 
89; his "Crisis," 161; his 
"Common Sense," 255; 279; 
his "Age of Reason," 366 
(n). 

"Parsons' Cause," 58-74. 
Patrick County, set off from 
Henry, 321. 

Pendleton, Edmund, t,t,, 35; 
Jefferson on, 82; 90, 109, 
III, 127, 143, 154, 155, 184, 
186, 216-217, 219; influ- 
ences Henry's career, 221, 
et seq.; defended by Grigs- 
by, 227-228; 233, 234; in 
the May Convention of 
1776, 256, et seq.; 270, 275; 
at the Virginia Federal 
Convention, 342, et seq.; 
439-440, 450. 

Philadelphia, at the time of 
the First Continental Con- 
gress, 1 58-1 59 ; its entertain- 
ments to the delegates, 168, 



487 



INDEX 



175-176; soldiers in, 213; 
military fervor in, 216. 

Philips, Josiah, attainted 
Tory, case of, 350. 

Phillips, General William, 
invades Virginia, 301. 

"Pine Slash," Henry's first 
farm, 40-42. 

Pleasants, Robert, Henry's 
letter to on slavery, 246- 
247. 

Pope, Nathaniel, quoted 
about W. Winston, 20; 
about Henry, 30, 31; about 
Henry on Independence, 
177-178; 187, 204; on Hen- 
ry's humor, 235, 429. 

Posey, General Thomas, Hen- 
ry's influence on, 352. 

Preston, Thomas L., quoted, 
236-237 (n). 

Prince Edward County, Henry 
moves to, 323; represents 
in Legislature, 340; famous 
trial in, 380-382. 

QuESNAY, Chevalier, 342. 

Randall, Henry Stephens, 
299. 

Randolph, David Meade, 358, 
417. 

Randolph, Edmund, quoted, 
54, 1 01, 108, 127; tells of 
Henry's rise to power, 145- 
148; 195-197; in the May 
Convention of 1776, 256; 
credits Henry with the re- 
ligious liberty section in 
the Bill of Rights, 266-267; 
307, 315; and the Federal 



Constitution, 330, et seq.; 
as Governor of Virginia, 
336; M. D. Conway, on, 336, 
in Philadelphia Conven- 
tion, 339; in Richmond 
Convention, 344, et seq.; his 
collision with Henry, 351; 

363- 

Randolph, John, Peyton's 
brother, examines Henry 
on law, 45-47. 

Randolph, John of Roanoke, 
on Clark's Conquest, 297; 
331, 380; on Henry in the 
British Debt case, 390-391; 
climbs Peaks of Otter, 393- 
394; 395, 402 (n); meets 
Henry at Charlotte Court- 
house, 420, et seq. 

Randolph, Peyton, examines 
Henry on law, 45-46; in 
House of Btirgesses, 90, 93, 
95, 98, III, 143, 153, 188, 
200, 256. 

Randolph, Richard, of "Bi- 
zarre," 380-382. 

Red Hill, Henry's last home, 
393, et seq.; beauty of, 397; 
house at, 398. 

Reed, Joseph, on Henry, 223; 
290. 

Religious Liberty, incorpo- 
rated through Henry in the 
Virginia Bill of Rights, 266- 
267. 

Rice, Dr. John H., Henry's 
remark to, 45, 422, 423. 

Rives, William Cabell, 80-81; 
93, his tribute to Henry, 



488 



INDEX 



iii; 138; his tribute to 
Mason, 269; 355. 

Roane, Mrs. Anne, Henry's 
daughter, marriage of, 238; 
letter to on a wife's duties, 
243-244; 426. 

Roane, John, minute de- 
scription of Henry's great- 
est speech, 193-195. 

Roane, Judge Spencer, 119, 
136, 204, 242, 250; 270-271; 
310-311; 323, 351, 368,395, 
426, 429; memorandum of, 
435, e^. seq. 

Robertson, David, reports 
debates in Virginia Federal 
Convention, 343; reports 
British Debt case, 388. 

Robinson, Rev. John, 422. 

Robinson, John, Speaker of 
House of Burgesses, 81 ; 
loan-office plan, 82-84; 93- 

Robinson, William, Commis- 
sary, 101-102. 

Robinson, Rev. William, 
"New Light," converts a 
tavern-keeper, 51-52; 56. 

Rodney, Caesar, in Continen- 
tal Congress, 157. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, quo- 
ted, 327. 

Rothermel, p. F., painting, 
99 (n). 

"Roundabout," Henry's Lou- 
isa County home, 11 2-1 16. 

Rowland, Miss Kate Mason, 
quoted, 265-266. 

Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 151, 
171; 252; on Paine's "Com- 



mon Sense," 255; 290- 

292. 
Russell, General William, 

marries Elizabeth Henry 

Campbell, 237. 
Rutledge, Edward, in the 

Continental Congress, 174- 

175- 
Rutledge, John, 106; in the 
Continental Congress, 174- 

175; 277- 
"Salisbury," Henry's house 

while Governor, 323-324. 
"Scotchtown," bought by 

Henry, 116; 179, 201, 217, 

238, 239, 242 ; sold by Henry, 

250. 

Scott, Judge John, "Barba- 
rossa," 353. 

Semple, Robert B., on Hen- 
ry's aid to the Baptists, 

125- 

Shelby, Evan, his expedition 
against the Cherokees, 278. 

Shelton, John, Henry's fa- 
ther-in-law, 39, 41, 48; 
helped by Henry, 114. 

Sherlock, Bishop Thomas, 
366. 

Short, W^illiam, to Jefferson, 

332. 
Smith, Meriwether, his plan of 

government, 262. 
Smith, John, controversy over, 

10—12 (n). 
Smith, John Blair, and Henry, 

341- 
Sons of Liberty, 103, 106, 151- 
152, 181 



489 



INDEX 



Spain, as a weight in the bal- 
ance, 177-178; feeUng the 
pulse of, on independence, 
253; declares war, 300-301. 

Speece, Rev. Conrad, quoted, 
378-380. 

Spotswood, Governor Alex- 
ander, 201, 319. 

Stamp Act, 84, et seq.; as 
cause of the American Rev- 
olution, 90; agitation, 103, 
et seq.; Stamp Act Congress, 
105-107; repeal of, 108. 

Stanard, William G., quo- 
ted, 2 TO. 

Steuben, Baron, as drill- 
master, 230; in Virginia, 307. 

St. John's Church, Richmond, 
description of, 187; story 
told on steps of, 374. 

Stuart, Archibald, 308-309; 

314-315- 
"Studley," Henry's birthplace 

18-19. 
Sullivan, William, "Public 

Characters," etc., quoted, 

370. 

Sully, Thomas, paints Hen- 
ry's portrait, 11 7-1 19; 124. 

Syme, John, the immigrant, 18. 

Syme, John, Henry's half- 
brother, 205, 251, 276, 417. 

Syme, Mrs. Sarah. See Sarah 
Winston Henry. 

Tarleton, Sir Banastre, 14; 
in Virginia, 301, et neq. 

Taylor, John of Caroline, 
strange story told by, 308, 

331- 



Tazewell, Henry, 315; on 
Henry's way of whirling 
his wig, 353 (n). 

Thacher, Oxenbridge, on Vir- 
ginians, 103. 

Thomson, Charles, his life 
sketched, 160, et seq.; ser- 
vices in the Continental 
Congress, 161; tells of Hen- 
ry, 162-164; on the high 
quality of the delegates, 
176. 

Tobacco as money, 59. 

Townshend, Charles, 130,132. 

"Tuckahoes," 24, 54, 91; and 
"Qo'hees," 93. 

Tucker, Beverley, quoted, 10. 

Tucker, Judge St. George, 
gives description of Henry, 
121-123; 145, 184, 186, 187; 
tells of Henry in St. John's 
Church, 192-193; and other 
Tuckers, 211; criticises Hen- 
ry, 281, ei seq.; 380. 

Twopenny Act, 60-63. 

Tyler, Lyon G., on the Vir- 
ginia Peninsula as the 
"cradle of the Union," 77; 
on early democracy, 92 (n). 

Tyler, Moses Coit, on the 
"Parsons' Cause," 61; on 
Stamp Act Resolutions, 
101-102; 184; admirable 
survey of Henry's position 
in March, 1775, 191; 202; 
272; on Dictatorship, 278; 
on "honeyed testimony," 
280-281; 333, 359, 452, 
426 (n). 



490 



INDEX 



Tyler, Judge John, on flog- 
ging in school, 24; on Hen- 
ry's eloquence, in contested 
election case, 76; hears the 
"Treason" speech, 98; tells 
of talk with Henry, no; 
names son after Henry, 135 ; 
136; hears Henry's speech 
in St. John's, 187 ; humorous 
scene from "Life" of, 305- 
306; and Henry, 312-315; 
in Virginia Federal Conven- 
tion, 344, et seq.; on Hen- 
ry's republicanism at the 
close of his life, 413. 

Venable, Richard N., refer- 
ence to Henry in Diary of, 

325. 357- 
Virginia, early history, 9-12; 

topography, 12-13; malaria 
in, 17; Huguenots, 19; 
stores in, 36-37; society in, 
53 ; Established Church, 54- 
59; tobacco currency, 59: 
the Peninsula, 77, 90; loyal- 
ists in, 210; proposes that 
the colonies declare inde- 
pendence, 258; organizes as 
a Commonwealth, 260, et 
seq.; gives up Northwest 
Territory, 297; assents to 
the Ordinance of 1787, 297- 
298; British invasion of, 
301, et seq.; Constitutional 
convention in, 327, et seq. 

Walpole, Sir Robert, 88, 
130. 

Warren, Joseph, 171; Henry 
on death of, 214. 



Washington, George, his 
"cure for chills," 54; 109, 
117, 134, 143, 149-150; 153; 
entertains Henry at Mount 
Vernon, 154; journeys with 
him to Philadelphia, 155- 
156; 184, 186, 188; advice 
sought, 201; made Com- 
mander-in-Chief, 214, 218 
prefers Henry in the forum 
to Henry in the field, 223 
as slaveholder, 245; un 
furls the Union flag, 254 
277, 279, 286; and Charles 
Lee, 289, et seq.; and the 
Conway Cabal, 290, et seq.; 
301 ; as Dictator in Virginia, 
309; and "Pete," 309; Hou- 
don's statue of, 316; 320; 
and the Federal Convention, 
329. 337. 3i^^ 339; as Presi- 
dent, 407; and Jefferson, 
409-410; 411; his final rela- 
tions with Henry, 416, et 
seq.; his appeal to Henry, 
418-419; 444. 

Washington, Martha, to del- 
egates going to the Contin- 
ental Congress, 155;, kins- 
woman of Dorothea Dan- 
dridge Henry 318. 

Watkins, Colonel Joel, 
402 (n); 419. 

Webster, Daniel, talks with 
Jefferson, 45, 136. 

Wells, William V., quoted, 
90. 

Whitefield, George, anec- 
dote of, 22-23. 



491 



INDEX 



William and Mary College, 
anecdote of founder, 55; 

77- 
Williamsburg, described, 78; 

"Old Capitol" at, 91-92; 
"Palace" at, 134; Raleigh 
Tavern, 135; incident in, 
136; First Virginia Conven- 
tion held in, 143; Powder 
Horn in, 199, et seq. 

Williamsburg Gazette, quoted, 
13-14, 201, 220, 225; prints 
a Government scheme, 262; 
panic news in, 279. 

Wilson, Rachel, Quakeress, 
meets Henry, 125. 

Wilson, Woodrow, quoted. 
109. 

Winston, Judge Edmund, 73, 
76; on Henry's return to the 
bar, 324; 365, 451, 453; 457- 

Winston, William ("Lang- 
loo"), eloquence of, 20. 

WiNTHROP, John, quoted, 252. 

Wirt, William, on Henry's 
boyhood, 23-34; character 



of, 28-29;' ^T^^ Jefferson, 
49; 65; tells how Henry en- 
tered the House of Bur- 
gesses, 79; 96; Sully picture 
painted for, 118; is misled 
by Jefferson, 171-172; on 
Henry's resistance speech, 
180; 185-187; 201-202; 276; 
314, 316, 351-352 (n); 354. 
367; on British Debt case, 
386, 388-389; 419- 

Woodford, General William, 
opposes Henry as a soldier, 
218, et seq. 

WoRMLEY, Ralph, last of the 
Loyalists, 211-212; and 
Landon Carter, 280-281 (n). 

"Writs of Assistance," 89. 

Wythe, George, law exam- 
iner, 45-47; described, 82; 
90-91, 95, III, 188, 262, 
275; anecdote of, 288; 296; 
quotes Henry to law stu- 
dents, 314; in Virginia Fed- 
eral Convention, 343, et seq. 

Yazoo Frauds, 400-402 (n). 



492 



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